in their time but that such Reformation hath been perfect I cannot admit Asa took away Idolatry but his Reformation was not perfect for Jehosaphat removed the High places yet was not his Reformation perfect for it was Hezekiah that brake the Brasen Serpent and Josiah destroyed the Idol-Temples who therefore beareth this Elogie That like unto him there was no King before him It is too well known that the Reformation of K. Henry the VIII was most imperfect in the Essentials of Doctrine Worship and Government And although it proceeded by some degrees afterward yet the Government was never reformed the Head was changed Dominus non Dominium and the whole lims of the Antichristian Hierarchy retained upon what Snares and Temptations of Avarice and Ambition the great Enchanters of the Clergy I need not express It was a hard saying of Romanorum Malleus Grosthed of Lincoln That Reformation was not to be expected nisi in ore gladii cruentandi Yet this I may say that the Laodicean lukewarmness of Reformation here hath been matter of continued complaints to many of the Godly in this Kingdom occasion of more Schism and Separation than ever was heard of in any other Church and of unspeakable grief and sorrow to other Churches which God did bless with greater purity of Reformation The glory of this great work we hope is reserved for Your Majesty that to Your comfort and everlasting Fame the praise of godly Josiah may be made Yours which yet will be no dispraise to Your Royal Father or Edward the VI. or any other Religious Princes before You none of them having so fair an opportunity as is now by the supreme Providence put into Your Royal hands My soul trembleth to think and to foresee what may be the event if this opportunity be neglected I will neither use the words of Mordecai Esth 4. 14. nor what Savonarola told another Charles because I hope better things from Your Majesty 4. To the Argument brought by your Majesty which I believe none of your Doctors had they been all about You could more briefly and yet so fully and strongly have expressed That nothing was retained in this Church but according as it was deduced from the Apostles to the constant universal practice of the Primitive Church and that it was of such consequence as by the alteration of it we should deprive our selves of the lawfulness of Priesthood I think Your Majesty means a lawful Ministry and then how the Sacraments can be administred is easy to judge I humbly offer these considerations First What was not in the times of the Apostles cannot be deduced from them We say in Scotland It cannot be brought But that is not the Ben But not to insist now on a Liturgy and things of that kind there was no such Hierarchy no such difference betwixt a Bishop and a Presbyter in the times of the Apostles and therefore it cannot thence be deduced for I conceive it to be as clear as if it were written with a Sun-beam that Presbyter and Bishop are to the Apostles one and the same thing no majority no inequality or difference of office power or degree betwixt the one and the other but a mere Identity in all 2. That the Apostles intending to set down the Offices and Officers of the Church and speaking so often of them and of their gifts and duties and that not upon occasion but of set purpose do neither express nor imply any such Pastor or Bishop as hath power over other Pastors although it be true that they have distinctly and particularly exprest the Office Gifts and Duties of the meanest Officers such as Deacons 3. That in the Ministery of the New Testament there is a comely beautiful and Divine Order and subordination one kind of Ministers both ordinary and extraordinary being placed in degree and dignity before another as the Apostles first the Evangelists Pastors Doctors c. in their own ranks but we cannot find in Offices of the same kind that one hath majority of power or priority of degree before another no Apostle above other Apostles unless in moral respects no Evangelist above other Evangelists or Deacon above other Deacons why then a Pastor above other Pastors In all other sorts of Ministers ordinary and extraordinary a Parity in their own kind only in the office of Pastor an Inequality 4. That the whole power and all the parts of the Ministry which are commonly called The power of Order and Jurisdiction are by the Apostles declared to be common to the Presbyter and Bishop and that Matt. 15. 16 17. the gradation in matter of Discipline or Church censures is from one to two or more and if he shall neglect them tell it to the Church he saith not tell it to the Bishop there is no place left to a retrogradation from more to one were he never so eminent If these considerations do not satisfie Your Majesty may have more or the same further cleared 5. Secondly I do humbly desire Your Majesty to take notice of the fallacy of that Argument from the Practice of the Primitive Church and the universal Consent of the Fathers It is the Argument of the Papists for such Traditions as no Orthodox Divine will admit The Law and Testimony must be the Rule We can have no certain knowledge of the Practice universal of the Church for many years Eusebius the prime Historian confesseth so much the learned Josephus Scaliger testifieth that from the end of the Acts of the Apostles until a good time after no certainty can be had from Ecclesiastical Authors about Church matters It is true Diotrephes sought the preeminence in the Apostles times and the Mystery of iniquity did then begin to work and no doubt in after times some puffed up with Ambition and others overtaken with Weakness endeavoured alteration of Church-Government but that all the Learned and Godly of those times consented to such a Change as is talked of afterwards will never be proved 6. Thirdly I will never think that Your Majesty will deny the lawfulness of a Ministery and the due administration of the Sacraments in the Reformed Churches which have no Diocesan Bishops sith it is not only manifest by Scripture but a great many of the strongest Champions for Episcopacy do confess that Presbyters may ordain other Presbyters and that Baptism administred by a private Person wanting a publick Calling or by a Midwife and by a Presbyter although not ordained by a Bishop are not one and the same thing 7. Concerning the other Argument taken from Your Majesty's Coronation Oath I confess that both in the taking and keeping of an Oath so sacred a thing is it and so high a point of Religion much tenderness is required and far be it from us who deresi to observe our own Solemn Oath to press Your Majesty with the violation of Yours Yet Sir I will crave Your leave in all humbleness and sincerity to lay before Your Majesty's eyes this
Truth but follow their own Fancies 3. Ratione Finis when the Interpretation is not proposed as Authentical to bind others but is intended only for our own private satisfaction The first is not to be despised the second is to be exploded and is condemned by the Apostle Peter the third ought not to be censured But that Interpretation which is Authentical and of supreme Authority which every mans conscience is bound to yield unto is of an higher nature And although the General Council should resolve it and the Consent of the Fathers should be had unto it yet there must always be place left to the judgment of Discretion as Davenant late Bishop of Salisbury beside divers others hath learnedly made appear in his Book De Judice Controversiarum where also the Power of Kings in matter of Religion is solidly and unpartially determined Two words only I add One is that notwithstanding all that is pretended from Antiquity a Bishop having sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction will never be found in Prime Antiquity The other is that many of the Fathers did unwittingly bring forth that Antichrist which was conceived in the times of the Apostles and therefore are incompetent Judges in the Question of Hierarchy And upon the other part the Lights of the Christian Church at and since the beginning of the Reformation have discovered many secrets concerning the Antichrist and his Hierarchy which were not known to former Ages And divers of the Learned in the Roman Church have not feared to pronounce That whosoever denies the true and literal sense of many Texts of Scripture to have been found out in this last Age is unthankful to God who hath so plentifully poured forth his Spirit upon the Children of this Generation and ungrateful towards those men who with so great pains so happy success and so much benefit to God's Church have travailed therein This might be instanced in many places of Scripture I wind together Diotrephes and the Mystery of iniquity the one as an old example of Church-ambition which was also too palpable in the Apostles themselves and the other as a cover of Ambition afterwards discovered which two brought forth the great Mystery of the Papacy at last 6. Although Your Majesty be not made a Judge of the Reformed Churches yet You so far censure them and their actions as without Bishops in Your Judgment they cannot have a lawful Ministery nor a due Administration of the Sacraments Against which dangerous and destructive Opinion I did alledge what I supposed Your Majesty would not have denied 1. That Presbyters without a Bishop may ordain other Presbyters 2. That Baptism administred by such a Presbyter is another thing than Baptism administred by a private person or by a Midwife Of the first Your Majesty calls for proof I told before that in Scripture it is manifest 1 Tim. 4. 14. Neglect not the Gift that is in thee which was given thee by the Prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery so it is in the English Translation And the word Presbytery To often as it is used in the New Testament always signifies the Persons and not the Office And although the Offices of Bishop and Presbyter were distinct yet doth not the Presbyter derive his power of Order from the Bishop The Evangelists were inferiour to the Apostles yet had they their power not from the Apostles but from Christ The same I affirm of the Seventy Disciples who had their power immediately from Christ no less than the Apostles had theirs It may upon better reason be averred that the Bishops have their power from the Pope than that Presbyters have their power from the Prelats It is true Jerome saith Quid facit exceptâ ordinatione Episcopus quod non facit Presbyter But in the same place he proves from Sccipture that Episcopus and Presbyter are one and the same and therefore when he appropriates Ordination to the Bishop he speaketh of the degenerated custom of his time Secondly Concerning Baptism a private person may perform the external Action and Rites both of it and of the Eucharist yet is neither of the two a Sacrament or hath any efficacy unless it be done by him that is lawfully called thereunto or by a person made publick and cloathed with Authority by Ordination This Errour in the matter of Baptism is begot by another Errour of the Absolute Necessity of Baptism 7. To that which hath been said concerning Your Majesties Oath I shall add nothing not being willing to enter upon the Question of the subordination of the Church to the Civil Power whether the King or Parliament or both and to either of them in their own place Such an Headship as the Kings of England have claimed and such a Supremacy as the Two Houses of Parliament crave with the Appeals from the supreme Ecclesiastical Judicature to them as set over the Church in the same line of Subordination I do utterly disclaim upon such Reasons as give my self satisfaction although no man shall be more willing to submit to Civil powers each one in their own place and more unwilling to make any trouble than my self Only concerning the application of the Generals of an Oath to the particular case now in hand under favour I conceive not how the Clergy of the Church of England is or ought to be principally intended in Your Oath For although they were esteemed to be the Representative Church yet even that is for the benefit of the Church Collective Salus Populi being Suprema lex and to be principally intended Your Majesty knows it was so in the Church of Scotland where the like alteration was made And if nothing of this kind can be done without the consent of the Clergy what Reformation can be expected in France or Spain or Rome it self It is not to be expected that the Pope or Prelates will consent to their own ruine 8. I will not presume upon any secret knowledge of the Opinions held by the King Your Majesty's Father of famous Memory they being much better known to Your Majesty I did only produce what was profest by Him before the world And although Prayers and Tears be the Arms of the Church yet it is neither acceptable to God nor conducible for Kings and Princes to force the Church to put on these Arms. Nor could I ever hear a reason why a necessary Defensive War against unjust Violence is unlawful although it be joyned with Offence and Invasion which is intended for Defence but so that Arms are laid down when the Offensive War ceaseth by which it doth appear that the War on the other side was in the nature thereof Defensive 9. Concerning the forcing of Conscience which I pretermitted in my other Paper I am forced now but without forcing of my conscience to speak of it Our Conscience may be said to be forced either by our selves or by others By our selves 1. When we stop the ear of our Conscience
and that these places of Scripture 1 Tim. v. 22. Tit. i. 5. 1 Tim. v. 19. Titus 3. 10. do prove that Timothy and Titus had power to ordain Presbyters and Deacons and to exercise censures over Presbyters and others and that the second and third Chapters of the Revelation do prove That the Angels of the Churches had power of governing of the Churches and exercising Censures But that either the Apostles or Timothy and Titus or the Angels of the Churches were Bishops as Bishops are distinct from Presbyters exercising Episcopal Government in that sense or that the Apostles did commit and derive to any particular persons as their Substitutes and Successors any such Episcopal Government or that this is proved in the least measure by the Scriptures alledged we do as fully deny And therefore do humbly deny also That Episcopal Government is therefore most consonant to the Word of God and of Apostolical institution or proved so to be by these Scriptures None of these were Bishops or practised Episcopal Government as Bishops are distinct from Presbyters Neither is such an Officer of the Church as a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter to be found in the New Testament by which we humbly conceive that our Faith and Conscience touching this point ought to be concluded The Name Office and Work of Bishop and Presbyter being one and the same in all things and never in the least distinguisht as is clearly evident Tit. i. 5 7. For this cause left I thee in Crete that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting and ordain Presbyters in every City as I had appointed thee For a Bishop must be blameless In which place the Apostle his reasoning were altogether invalid and inconsequent if Presbyter and Bishop were not the same Office as well as they have the same Name The same is manifest Acts xx 17 28. And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the Presbyters of the Church to whom he gave this charge verse 28. Take heed therefore unto your selves and to all the Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to feed and govern the Church of God Where we observe That the Apostle being to leave these Presbyters and never to see their faces more verse 28. doth charge them with the feeding and governing of the Church as being Bishops of the Holy Ghost's making But that the Holy Ghost did make any superior or higher kind of Bishops than these common Presbyters is not to be found in that or any other Text. And that under the mouth of two or three witnesses this assertion of ours may stand we add to what we have already said that in 1 Pet. v. 1 2. The Presbyters which are among you I exhort who am also a Presbyter Feed the flock of God which is among you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 performing the office of Bishops Where it appears plain to us that under the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in this place is expressed whatsoever work the Presbyters are to do Neither can Bishops so called as above Presbyters do more for the government and good of the Church otherwise than is there expresly enjoyned unto Presbyters By all which that hath been said the point is rendred to be most clear to the judgement of most men both ancient and of later times That there is no such Officer to be found in the Scriptures of the New Testament as a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter neither doth the Scripture afford us the least notice of any qualification required in a Bishop that is not required in a Presbyter nor any Ordination to the Office of a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter nor any work or duty charged upon a Bishop which Presbyters are not enjoyned to do nor any greater honour or dignity put upon them For that double honour which the Apostle speaks of 1 Tim. v. 17. as due to Presbyters that rule well is with a note of especially affixed to that Act or work of labouring in the word and Doctrine which is not that Act wherein Bishops have challenged a singularity or peculiar eminency above the Presbyters To that which Your Majesty doth conceive That Episcopal government was practised by the Apostles themselves we humbly answer That the Apostles as they were the highest Officers of the Church of Christ so they were extraordinary in respect of their commission gifts and Office and distinguisht from all other Officers 1 Cor. xii 28. God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers Ephes iv 11. Christ gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers Where the Apostles are distinguished from Pastors and Teachers who are the ordinary Officers of the Church for Preaching the Word and Government That they had power and authority to ordain Church-Officers and to exercise Censures in all Churches we affirm and withal that no other Persons or Officers of the Church may challenge or assume to themselves such power in that respect alone because the Apostles practised it except such power belong unto them in common as well as to the Apostles by warrant of the Scripture For that Government which they practised was Apostolical according to the peculiar commission and authority which they had and no otherwise to be called Episcopal than as their Office was so comprehensive as they had power to do the work of any or all other Church-Officers in which respect they call themselves Presbyteri Diaconi but never Episcopi in distinct sense and therefore we humbly crave leave to say that to argue the Apostles to have practised Episcopal Goverment because they ordained other Officers and exercised Censures is as if we should argue a Justice of Peace to be a Constable because he doth that which a Constable doth in some particulars It 's manifest that the Office of Bishops and Presbyters was not distinct in the Apostles They did not act as Bishops in some Acts and as Presbyters in other Acts the distinction of Presbyters and Bishops being made by men in after-times And whereas Your Majesty doth conceive that the Episcopal Government was by the Apostles committed and derived to particular persons as their Substitutes or Successors therein as for ordaining Presbyters and Deacons giving rules concerning Christian discipline and exercising censures over Presbyters and others seeming by the alledged places of Scripture to instance in Timothy and Titus and the Angels of the Churches we humbly answer and first to that of Timothy and Titus We grant that Timothy and Titus had Authority and Power of ordaining Presbyters and Deacons and of exercising Censures over Presbyters and others though we cannot say they had this power as the Apostles Substitutes or Successors in Episcopal Government nor that they exercised the power they had as being Bishops in the sense of Your Majesty but as extraordinary Officers or Evangelists which Evangelists were an
Office in the Church distinct from Pastors and Teachers Eph. iv 11. and that they were Evangelists it appears by their being sent up and down by the Apostles or taken along with them in company to several Churches as the necessity and occasion of the Churches did require The one of them being expresly called an Evangelist 1 Tim. iv 5. and neither of them being any where in Scripture called Bishop Neither were they fixed to Ephesus and Crete as Bishops in the Churches committed to them but removed from thence to other places and never for ought appears in Scripture returned to them again And it seems clear to us that neither their abode at Ephesus and Crete was for any long time nor so intended by the Apostle For he imploys them there upon occasional business and expresses himself in such manner I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine 1 Tim. i. 3. For this cause left I thee in Crete Tit. i. 5. as doth not carry the fixing or constituting of a Bishop in a place as perpetual Governour And it is as manifest that they were both of them called away from these places ii Tim. iv 9. Do thy diligence to come to me shortly Tit. iii. 12. Be diligent to come to me to Nicopolis So that they may as well be called Bishops of any other Cities or Churches where they had any considerable abode as they are pretended to have been of Ephesus and Crete as they are called by the Postscripts of these Epistles the credit of which Postscripts we cannot build upon in this point Secondly to that of the Angels of the Churches The Ministers of the Churches are called Stars and Angels which denominations are metaphorical and in a mystery Rev. i. 20. the mystery of the seven Stars Angels in respect of their Mission or sending Stars in respect of their Station and shining And it seems strange to us that to so many express Testimonies of Scripture an allegorical denomination or mystery should be opposed These Angels being no where called Bishops in vulgar acceptation nor the word Bishop used in any of John's writings who calls himself Presbyter nor any mention of superiority of one Presbyter to another but in Diotrephes affecting it And as to that which may be said that the Epistles are directed to one we answer that a number of persons are in the mysterious and prophetick writings expressed in singulars and we humbly conceive that being written in an Epistolary style for they are as Letters or Epistles to the Churches these writings are directed as Letters to collective Representative Bodies use to be that is to one but intended and meant to that Body in meeting assembled which that they were so intended is clear to us both because there were in Ephesus Bishops and Presbyters one and the same to whom the Apostle at his farewel commendeth the Government of the Church and by divers expressions in these Epistles as Rev. 11. 24. To you and to the rest in Thyatira by which distinction of you and the rest we conceive the particular Governours which were more than one and the people to be signified And so cannot consent that any singular person had majority over the rest or sole power of exercising Church-Censures and Government spoken of in these Chapters Having thus as we humbly conceive proved by pregnant places of Scripture compared together that the Apostles themselves did not institute or practice Episcopal Government nor commit and derive it to particular persons as their Substitutes or Successors therein we shall in farther discharge of our duty to and for the more clear and full satisfaction of Your Majesty in this point briefly declare into what Officers hands the ordinary and standing Offices of the Church were transmitted and derived by and from the Apostles The Apostles had no Successors in eundem gradum the Apostolical Office was not derived by Succession being instituted by Christ by extraordinary and special Commission But for the ordinary and standing use and service of the Church there were ordained only two Orders of Officers viz. Bishops and Deacons which the Apostle expresseth Phil. 1. 1. To all the Saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi with the Bishops and Deacons and onely of them doth the Apostle give the due Characters of Officers 1 Tim. iii 2 8. From both which places of Scripture we conclude with ancient Expositors both Greek and Latine that Bishops are the same with Presbyters and besides Presbyters there is no mention of any other Order but that of Deacons Of both which Orders in the Apostles times there were in one City more than one as in Philippi and Ephesus And we humbly offer to Your Majesty as observable That though one Order might be superiour to another Order yet in the same Order of Officers there was not any one superior to others of the same Order No Apostle was above an Apostle no Evangelist above an Evangelist no Presbyter above a Presbyter no Deacon above a Deacon And so we conclude this part That since Church Officers are instituted and set in the Church by God or Christ Jesus and that Ordination by or in which the Office is conveyed is of no other Officers but of Presbyters and Deacons therefore there are no other Orders of ordinary and standing Officers in the Churches of Christ As for the Ages immediately succeeding the Apostles we answer first Our Faith reaches no farther than the Holy Scriptures No human testimony can beget any more than a human faith Secondly we answer That it is agreed upon by Learned men as well such as contend for Episcopacy as others that the times immediately succeeding the Apostles are very dark in respect of the History of the Church Thirdly That the most unquestionable Record of those times gives clear testimony to our assertion viz. The Epistle of Clemens to the Corinthians who reciting the Orders of Church-Officers expresly limits them to two Bishops and Deacons and them whom in one place he calls Bishops he always afterwards nameth Presbyters The Epistles of Ignatius pretend to the next Antiquity but are by some suspected as wholly spurious and proved by Vedelius to be so mixed that it is hard if not impossible to know what part of them are genuine Besides Bishop Vsher in his late observations on them chap. 18. pag. 138. confesses that of the twelve of his Epistles six are counterfeit the other six mixt and none of them in every respect to be accounted sincere and genuine Fourthly we grant That not long after the Apostles times Bishops in some superiority to Presbyters are by the Writers of those times reported to be in the Church but they were set up not as a Divine Institution but as an Ecclesiastical as afterwards both Arch-Bishops and Patriarchs were Which is clear by Doctor Reynolds his Epistle to Sir Francis Knowles wherein he shews out of
Offices they are distinguisht by their Callings and Commissions though not by the work as all those that are named Eph. iv ii Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers are designed to one and the same general and common work the work of the Ministry ver 12. and yet they are not therefore all one for it 's said some Apostles some Prophets some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers A Dictator in Rome and an ordinary Tribune Moses and the subordinate Governors of Israel the Court of Parliament and of the Kings-Bench an Apostle and a Presbyter or Deacon may agree in some common work and yet no confusion of Offices follows thereupon To that which Your Majesty conceives that the most that can be proved from all or any of those places by us alledged to prove that the Name Office and Work of Bishops and Presbyters is one and the same in all things and not in the least distinguisht is That the word Bishop is used in them to signifie a Presbyter and the consequently the Office and Work mentioned in those places as the Office and Work of a Bishop are the Office of a Presbyter which is confessed on all sides we make this humble return That though there be no supposition so much as implied that the Office of a Bishop and a Presbyter are distinct in any thing for the names are mutually reciprocal yet we take Your Majesties Concession that in these times of the Church and places of Scripture there was no distinct Office of Bishops and Presbyters and consequently that the identity of the Office must stand until there can be found a clear distinction of division in the Scriptures And if we had argued the identity of Functions from the Community of names and some part of the work the Argument might have been justly termed a fallacy but we proved them the same Office from the same work per omnia being allowed so to do by the fulness of those two words used in the Acts and S. Peter his Epistle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under the force of which words the Bishops claim their whole power of Government and Jurisdiction and we found no little weight added to our Argument from that in the Acts where the Apostle departing from the Ephesian Presbyters or Bishops as never to see their faces more commits as by a final charge the Government of that Church both over parricular Presbyters and people not to Timothy who then stood at his elbow but to the Presbyters under the name of Bishops made by the Holy Ghost whom we read to have set many Bishops over one Church not one over either one or many And the Apostles arguing from the same Qualification of a Presbyter and of a Bishop in order to Ordination or putting him into Office fully proves them to be two names of the same Order or Function the divers orders of Presbyter and Deacon being diversly characterised Upon these grounds we hope without fallacy we conceive it justly proved that a Bishop and a Presbyter are wholly the same That Timothy and Titus were single persons having authority of Government we acknowledge but deny that from thence any argument can be made unto either single Bishop or Presbyter for though a singie Presbyter by the power of his Order as they call it may preach the Word and dispense the Sacraments yet by that example of the Presbytery their Laying on of hands and that Rule of Telling the Church in matter of scandal it seems manifest that Ordination and Censures are not to be exercised by a single Presbyter neither hath Your Majesty hitherto proved either the names of Bishops and Presbyters or the Function to be in other places of Scripture at all distinguished You having wholly waved the notice or answer of that we did assert and do yet desire some demonstration of the contrary viz. That the Scripture doth not afford us the least notice of any Qualification any Ordination any work or duty any honour peculiary belonging to a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter the assignment of which or any of them unto a Bishop by the Scripture would put this Question near to an issue That God should intend a distinct and highest kind of Officer for Government in the Church and yet not express any qualification work or way of constituting and ordaining of him seems unto us improbable Concerning the signification of the word Episcopus importing an Overseer or one that hath a charge committed to him for instance of watching a Beacon or keeping sheep and the application of the name to such persons as have inspection of the Churches of Christ committed to them in spiritualibus we also give our suffrage but not to that distinction of Episcopus gregis and Episcopus pastorum gregis both because it is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or point in question and also because Your Majesty having signified that Episcopus imports a keeper of sheep yet You have not said that it signifies also a keeper of shepherds As to that which is affirmed by Your Majesty that the peculiar of the Function of Bishops is Church-Government and that the reason why the word Episcopus is usually applied to Presbytery was because Church-Governors had then another title of greater eminency to wit that of Apostles until the Government of the Church came into the hands of their Successors and then the names were by common usage very soon appropriated that of Episcopus to Ecclesiastical Governors that of Presbyter to the ordinary Ministrrs This assertion Your Majesty is pleased to make without any demonstration for whom the Scripture calls Presbyters Rulers and Pastors and Teachers it calls Governors and commits to them the charge of feeding and inspection as we have proved and that without any mention of Church-Government peculiar to a Bishop We deny not but some of the Fathers have conceived the notion that Bishops were called Apostles till the names of Presbyter and Episcopus became appropriate which is either an allusion or conceit without Evidence of Scripture for while the Function was one the names were not divided when the Function was divided the name was divided also and indeed impropriate but we that look for the same warrant for the division of an Office as for the Constitution cannot find that this appropriation of names was made till afterwards or in process of time as Theodore one of the Fathers of this conceit affirms whose saying when it is run out of the pale of Scripture time we can no further follow From which premisses laid all together we did conclude the clearness of our assertion that in the Scriptures of the New Testament a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter in Qualification Ordination Office or Dignity is not found the contrary whereof though Your Majesty saith that You have seen confirmed by great variety of credible Testimony yet we believe those Testimonies are rather strong in asserting than in demonstrating the
neither doth the text clearly prove that Timothy was so 1. The name of Bishop the Scripture neither expressly nor by implication gives to either the work which they are injoyned to do is common to Apostles Evangelists Pastors and Teachers and cannot of it self make a character of one distinct and proper Office But that there was such an Order of Officers in the Church as Evangelists reckoned amongst the extraordinary and temporary Offices and that Timothy was one of that Order and that both Timothy and Titus were not ordained to one particular Church but were companions and fellow-Labourers with the Apostles sent abroad to several Churches as occasion did require it is as we humbly conceive clear enough in Scripture and not denied by the learned defenders of Episcopal Government nor as we remember by Scultetus himself during the time of their travels 2. To that which Your Majesty secondly saith That we cannot make it appear by any Text of Scripture that the Office of Evangelist is such as we have described his work seeming 11 Tim. VIII 4 5. to be nothing else but diligence in preaching the word notwithstanding all impediments and oppositions we humbly answer that exact definitions of these or other Church-Officers are hard to be found in any Text of Scripture but by comparing one place of Scripture with another it may be proved as well what they were as what the Apostles and Presbyters were the description by us given being a Character made up by collation of Scriptures from which Mr. Hooker doth not much vary saying that Evangelists were Presbyters of principal sufficiency whom the Apostles sent abroad and used as Agents in Ecclesiastical Affairs wheresoever they saw need And that Pastors and Teachers were settled in some certain charge and thereby differed from Evangelists whose work that it should be nothing but diligence in preaching c. which is common to Apostles Evangelists Pastors and Teachers and so not distinctive of this particular Office argueth to us that as the Apostles Office was divided into Episcopal and Apostolical so this also is to be divided into Episcopal and Evangelistical Ordination and Censures belonging to Timothy as to a Bishop and diligence in Preaching only being left to the Evangelist which division as we humbly conceive is not warranted by the Scripture Thirdly Your Majesty faith that that which we so confidently affirm of Timothy and Titus their acting as Evangelists is by some denied and refuted yea even with scorn rejected by some rigid Presbyterians and that which we so confidently deny that they were Bishops is confirmed by the consentient testimony of all antiquity recorded by Jerome himself that they were Bishops of Paul's ordination acknowledged by very many late Divines and that a Catalogue of 27 Bishops of Ephesus lineally succeeding from Timothy out of good Record is vouched by Dr. Reynolds and other Writers Our confidence as Your Majesty is pleased to call it was in our Answer exprest in these words We cannot say that Timothy and Titus were Bishops in the sense of Your Majesty but extraordinary Officers or Evangelists in which opinion we were then clear not out of a total ignorance of those Testimonies which might be alleged against it but from intrinsick arguments out of Scripture from which Your Majesty hath not produced any one to the contrary Nor is our confidence weakned by such replies as these The Scripture never calls them Bishops but the Fathers do The Scripture calls Timothy an Evangelist some of late have refuted it and rejected it with scorn The Scripture relates their motions from Church to Church but some affirm them to be fixed at Ephesus and in Crete The Scripture makes distinction of Evangelists and Pastors but some say that Timothy and Titus were both We cannot give Your Majesty a present account of Scultetus and Gerard's Arguments but do believe that Mr. Gillespy and Rutherford are able with greater strength to refute that opinion of Timothy and Titus their being Bishops than they do if they do with scorn reject this of their being Evangelists As for Testimonies and Catalogues tho we undervalue them not yet Your Majesty will be pleased to allow us the use of our Reason so far as not to erect an Office in the Church which is not found in Scripture upon general appellations or titles and allusions frequently found in the Fathers especially when they speak vulgarly and not as to a point in debate for even Jerome who as Your Majesty saith doth record that Timothy and Titus were made Bishops and that of St. Paul's Ordination doth when he speaks to the point between Your Majesty and us give the Bishops to understand that they are superior to Presbyters consuetudine magis quam Dominicoe veritatis dispositione For Catalogues their credit rests upon the first witnesses from whom they are reported by tradition from hand to hand whose writings are many times supposititious dubious or not extant besides that these Catalogues do resolve themselves into some Apostle or Evangelist as the first Bishop as the catalogue of Jerusalem into the Apostle James that of Antioch into Peter that of Rome into Peter and Paul that of Alexandria into Mark that of Ephesus into Timothy which Apostles and Evangelists can neither themselves be degraded by being made Bishops nor be succeeded in their proper Calling or Office and it is easie for us to proceed the same way and to find many ancient rites and customs generally received in the Church counted by the ancients Apostolical traditions as near the Apostles times as Bishops which yet are confessedly not of Divine Institution And further if Timothy and the rest that are first in the catalogue were Bishops with such sole Power of Ordination and Censures as is asserted how came their pretended Successors who were but primi Presbyterorum as the Fathers themselves call them to lose so much Episcopal power as was in their Predecessors and as was not recovered in 300 years And therefore we cannot upon any thing yet said recede from that of our Saviour Ab initio non fuit sic from the beginning it was not so 4. Your Majesty saith that we affirm but upon very weak proofs that they were from Ephesus and Crete removed to other places the contrary whereunto hath been demonstrated by some who have exactly out of Scripture compared the times and order of the several Journeys and Stations of Paul and Timothy It is confessed that our assertion that Timothy and Titus were Evangelists lies with some stress upon this that they removed from place to place as they were sent by or accompanied the Apostles the proof whereof appears to us to be of greater strength than can be taken off by the comparison which Your Majesty makes of the Divines of the Assembly at Westminster We begin with the travels of Timothy as we find them in order recorded in the Scripture-places cited in the Margin and we set forth from Beraea where we find
viz. because it was not The one Reason given by Your Majesty is because in the Churches which the Apostles themselves planted they placed Presbyters under them for the Office of Teaching but reserved in their own hands the Power of Governing those Churches for a longer or shorter time before they set Bishops over them Which under Your Majesties favour is not so much a reason why Bishops are not mentioned to be in those places as that they indeed were not The variety of Reasons may we say or Conjectures rendred why Bishops were not set up at first as namely because fit men could not be so soon found out which is Epiphanius his reason or for remedy of Schism which is Jerome's reason or because the Apostles saw it not expedient which is Your Majesties reason doth shew that this Cause labours under a manifest weakness For the Apostles reserving in their own hands the power of Governing we grant it they could no more devest themselves of power of Governing than as Dr. Bilson saith they could lose their Apostleship had they set no Bishops in all Churches they had no more parted with their power of Governing than they did in setting up the Presbyters for we have proved that Presbyters being called Rulers Governors Bishops had the power of Governing in Ordinary committed to them as well as the Office of Teaching and that both the Keys as they are called being by our Saviour committed into one hand were not by the Apostle divided into two Nor do we see how the Apostle could reasonably commit the Government of the Church to the Presbyters of Ephesus Acts 20. and yet reserve the power of Governing viz. in Ordinary in his own hands who took his solemn leave of them as never to see their faces more As concerning that part of the power of Government which for distinction sake may be called Legislative and which is one of the three fore-mentioned things challenged by the Bishops viz. giving Rules the reserving of it in the Apostles hands hindred not but that in Your Majesties Judgment Timothy and Titus were Bishops of Ephesus and Crete to whom the Apostle gives Rules for Ordering and Governing of the Church Nor is there any more reason that the Apostles reserving that part of the Power of Governing which is called Executive in such cases and upon such occasions as they thought meet should hinder the setting up of Bishops if they had intended it and therefore the reserving of Power in their hands can be no greater reason why they did not set us Bishops at the first than that they never did And since by Your Majesties Concession the Presbyters were plac'd by the Apostles first in the Churches by them planted and that with Power of Governing as we prove by Scripture You must prove the super-institution of a Bishop over the Presbyters by the Apostles in some after-times or else we must conclude that the Bishop got both his Name and Power of Government out of the Presbyters hand as the Tree in the wall roots out the stones by little and little as it self grows As touching Philippi where Your Majesty saith it may be probable there was yet no Bishop it is certain there were many like them who were also at Ephesus to whom if only the Office of Teaching did belong they had the most laborious and honourable part that which was less honourable being reserved in the Apostles hands and the Churches left in the mean time without ordinary Government The other Reason given why only two Orders are mentioned in those places is because he wrote in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus to them that were Bishops so there was no need to write any thing concerning the Choice or Qualification of any other sort of Officers than such as belonged to their Ordination or Inspection which were Presbyters and Deacons only and no Bishops The former Reason why only two Orders are mentioned in the Epistle to the Philippians was because there was yet no Bishop this latter Reason why the same two only are mentioned in these Epistles is because there was no Bishop to be Ordained We might own the reason for good if there may be found any rule for the Ordination of the other Order of Bishops in some other place of Scripture but if the Ordination cannot be found how should we find the Order And it is reasonable to think that the Apostle in the Chapter formerly alledged i Tim. iii. where he passes immediately from the Bishop to the Deacon would have distinctly exprest or at least hinted what sort of Bishops he meant whether the Bishop over Presbyters or the Presbyter-Bishop to have avoided the confusion of the Name and to have set as it were some matk of difference in the Escocheon of the Presbyter-Bishop if there had been some other Bishop of a higher house And whereas Your Majesty saith there was no need to write to them about a Bishop in a distinct sense who belonged not to their Ordination and Inspection we conceive that in Your Majesties judgment Bishops might then have Ordained Bishops like themselves for there was then no Canon forbidding one single Bishop to ordain another of his own rank and there being many Cities in Crete Titus might have found it expedient as those ancient Fathers that call him Arch-bishop think he did to have set up Bishops in some of those Cities So that this Reason fights against the Principles of those that hold Timothy and Titus to have been Bishops For our part we believe that these Rules belonged not to Timothy and Titus with strict limitation to Ephesus and Crete but respectively to all the places or Churches where they might come and to all that shall at any time have the Office of Ordaining and Governing as it is written in the same Chapter i Tim. iii. 14 15. These things I have written unto thee c. that thou mayest know how to behave thy self in the House of God which is the Church And therefore if there had been any proper Character or Qualification of a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter if any Ordination or Office we think the Apostle would have signified it but because he did not we conclude and the more strongly from the insufficiency of Your Majesties two Reasons that there are only two Orders of Officers and consequently that a Bishop is not superior to a Presbyter for we find not as we said in our Answer that one Officer is superior to another who is of the same Order Concerning the Ages succeeding the Apostles Your Majesty having in Your first Paper said that You could not in Conscience consent to Abolish Episcopal Government because You did conceive it to be of Apostolical Institution practised by the Apostles themselves and by them committed and derived to particular persons as their Successors and hath ever since till these last times been exercised by Bishops in all the Churches of Christ we thought it necessary in our Answer to
for the latter viz. That they were superiour to Presbyters also had been confessed by your selves in your first Grant before but was not produced to prove the Conclusion it self immediately viz. That they were Bishops in distinct sense altho sundry of their Testimonies come up even to that also But to the first point That they were Single persons the concurrence is so general that His Majesty remembreth not to have heard of any one single Interpreter before Brightman that ever expounded them otherwise And yet the same man as His Majesty is informed in his whole Commentary upon the Revelation doth scarce if at all any where else save in these Seven Epistles expound the word Angel collectively but still of one single person or other insomuch as he maketh one Angel to be Gregory the Great another Queen Elizabeth another Cranmer another Chemnitius and the like But generally both the Fathers and Protestant Divines agree in this That the Angel was a Single person some affirming plainly and that in terminis he was the Bishop some naming the very persons of some of them as of Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna and others some calling him the chief Pastor or Superintendent of that Church and those that speak least and were more or less disaffected to Bishops as Beza Doctor Reynolds the Geneva Notes and even Cartwright himself the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 President or chief among the Presbyters And this they do sundry of them not crudely delivering their Opinions only and then no more but they give Reasons for it and after examination of the several Opinions prefer this before the rest affirming That Doctissimi quique interpretes all the best learned Interpreters so understand it and that they cannot understand it otherwise vim nisi facere Textui velint unless they will offer violence to the Text. That which His Majesty said concerning the Subdivision of those that had divided themselves from the common received judgment of the Church was meant by His Majesty as to the Subdivision in respect of this particular of the Angels wherein they differ one from another as to the Division in respect of their dislike of Bishops wherein they all agree And truly His Majesty doth not yet see how either their Differences can be possibly reconciled in the former no accommodation in the world being able to make all the people of the whole Church nor yet a Colledg consisting of many Presbyters to be one Single person or their recess wholly excused in the latter their dissenting from the common and received Judgment and Practice of the Christian Church in the matter of Episcopacy and the evil consequents thereof having in His Majesties Opinion brought a greater reproach upon the Protestant Religion and given more advantage or colour at least to the Romish party to asperse the Reformed Churches in such sort as we see they do than their disagreement from the Church of Rome in any one controverted Point whatsoever besides hath done As to the Apostles Successors Here little is said the substance whereof hath not been Answered before His Majesty therefore briefly declares His meaning herein That the Apostles were to have no necessary Successors in any thing that was extraordinary either in their Mission or Unction That His Majesty spake not of Succession into Abilities otherwise than by instance mentioning other particulars withal which thing He thinketh needeth not to have been now the third time by you mentioned That in the Apostles Mission or Commission for His Majesty under the name of Mission comprehended both and consequently in the Apostolical Office as there was something extraordinary so there was something ordinary wherein they were to have Successors That Bishops are properly their Successors in the whole Apostolical Office so far as it was ordinary and to have Successors That therefore the Bishops Office may in regard of that Succession be said to be Apostolical That yet it doth not follow that they must needs be called Apostles taking the Denomination from the Office inasmuch as the Denomination of the Apostles peculiarly so called was not given them from the Office whereunto they were sent but as the word it self rather importeth from the immediateness of their Mission being sent immediately by Christ himself in respect whereof for distinction sake and in Honour to their Persons it was thought fitter by those that succeeded in common usage to abstain from that Denomination and to be styled rather by the Name of Bishops That if the Apostles had no Successors the Presbyters who are their Successors in part mediately and subordinately to the Bishops will be very hard set to prove the Warrant of their own Office and Mission which if not derived from the Apostles who only received power of Mission from Christ by a continued line of Succession His Majesty seeth not upon what other bottom it can stand As to the standing Officers of the Church You insisted upon Two Places of Scripture Phil. i. 1. and 1 Tim. iii. to prove that there were to be no more standing Officers in the Church than the two in those places mentioned viz. Presbyters who are there called Bishops and Deacons whereunto His Majesties Answer was That there might be other tho not mentioned in those places which Answer tho it were alone sufficient yet ex abundanti His Majesty shewed withall that supposing your interpretation of the word Bishop in both the places viz. to denote the Office of Presbyter only there might yet be given some probable conjectures which likewise supposed true might satisfie us why that of Bishop in the distinct sense should not be needful or proper to be named in those places His Majesties former Reason tho in Hypothesi and as applied to the Church of Philippi it be but conjectural yet upon the credit of all Ecclesiastical Histories and consideration of the Condition of those times as it is set forth in the Scriptures also it will appear in Thesi to be undoubtedly true viz. That the Apostles themselves first planted Churches That they were perpetual Governours and in chief of all the Churches whilst they lived That as the burthen grew greater by the propagation of the Gospel they assumed others in partem curae committing to their charge the peculiar oversight of the Churches in some principal Cities and the Towns and Villages adjacent as James at Jerusalem and others in other places sooner or later as they saw it expedient for the service of the Church That the persons so by them appointed to such peculiar charges did exercise the powers of Ordination and other Government under the Apostles and are therefore in the Church Stories called Bishops of those places in a distinct sense That in some places where the Apostles were themselves more frequently conversant they did for some while govern the Churches immediately by themselves before they set Bishops there and that after the Apostles times Bishops only were the ordinary Governours of the Churches of Christ And His Majesty believeth it cannot be proved either from clear evidence of Scripture or credible testimonies of Antiquity that ever any Presbyter or
my humble Opinion would be that they should draw the Minds Tongues and Pens of the Learned to dispute about other matter than the Power or Prerogative of Kings and Princes and in this kind Your Majesty hath suffered and lost more than will easily be restored to Your self or Your Posterity for a long time It is not denied but the prime Reforming power is in Kings and Princes quibus deficientibus it comes to the inferior Magistrate quibus deficientibus it descendeth to the Body of the People supposing that there is a necessity of Reformation and that by no means it can be obtained of their Superiors It is true that such a Reformation is more imperfect in respect of the Instruments and manner of Procedure yet for the most part more pure and perfect in relation to the effect and product And for this end did I cite the Examples of old of Reformation by Regal Authority of which none was perfect in the second way of perfection except that of Josiah Concerning the saying of Grosthed whom the Cardinals at Rome confest to be a more Godly man than any of themselves it was his Complaint and Prediction of what was likely to ensue not his desire or election if Reformation could have been obtained in the ordinary way I might bring two unpartial Witnesses Juel and Bilson both famous English Bishops to prove that the Tumults and Troubles raised in Scotland at the time of Reformation were to be imputed to the Papists opposing of the Reformation both of Doctrine and Discipline as an Heretical Innovation and not to be ascribed to the Nobility or People who under God were the Instruments of it intending and seeking nothing but the purging out of Errour and setling of the Truth 2. Concerning the Reformation of the Church of England I conceive whether it was begun or not in K. Henry the Eighth's time it was not finished by Q. Elizabeth the Father stirred the Humors of the diseased Church but neither the Son nor the Daughter although we have great reason to bless God for both did purge them out perfectly This Perfection is yet reserved for Your Majesty Where it is said that all this time I bring no Reasons for a further Change the fourth Section of my last Paper hath many hints of Reasons against Episcopal Government with an offer of more or clearing of those which Your Majesty hath not thought fit to take notice of And Learned men have observed many Defects in that Reformation As That the Government of the Church of England for about this is the Question now is not builded upon the foundation of Christ and the Apostles which they at least cannot deny who profess Church-Government to be mutable and ambulatory and such were the greater part of Archbishops and Bishops in England contenting themselves with the Constitutions of the Church and the authority and munificence of Princes till of late that some few have pleaded it to be Jure Divino That the English Reformation hath not perfectly purged out the Roman Leaven which is one of the reasons that have given ground to the comparing of this Church to the Church of Laodicea as being neither hot nor cold neither Popish nor Reformed but of a lukewarm temper betwixt the two That it hath depraved the Discipline of the Church by conforming of it to the Civil Policy That it hath added many Church-Offices higher and lower unto those instituted by the Son of God which is as unlawful as to take away Offices warranted by the Divine Institution and other the like which have moved some to apply this saying to the Church of England Multi ad perfectionem pervenirent nisi jam se pervenisse crederent 4. In my Answer to the first of Your Majesty 's many Arguments I brought a Breviate of some Reasons to prove that a Bishop and Presbyter are one and the same in Scripture from which by necessary Consequence I did infer the negative Therefore no difference in Scripture between a Bishop and a Presbyter the one name signifying Industriam Curiae Pastoralis the other Sapientiae Maturitatem saith Beda And whereas Your Majesty averrs the Presbyterian Government was never practised before Calvin's time Your Majesty knows the common Objection of the Papists against the Reformed Churches Where was your Church your Reformation your Doctrine before Luther's time One part of the common Answer is that it was from the beginning and is to be found in Scripture The same I affirm of Presbyterian Government And for the proving of this the Assembly of Divines at Westminster have made manifest that the Primitive Christian Church at Jerusalem was governed by a Presbytery while they shew 1. That the Church of Jerusalem consisted of more Congregations than one from the multitude of Believers from the many Apostles and other Preachers in that Church and from the diversity of Languages among the Believers 2. That all these Congregations were under one Presbyterial Government because they were for Government one Church Acts 11. 22 26. and because that Church was governed by Elders Acts 11. 30. which were Elders of that Church and did meet together for acts of Government And the Apostles themselves in that meeting Acts 15. acted not as Apostles but as Elders stating the Question debating it in the ordinary way of disputation and having by search of Scripture found the will of God they conclude It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and us which in the judgment of the learned may be spoken by any Assembly upon like evidence of Scripture The like Presbyterian Government had place in the Churches of Corinth Ephesus Thessalonica c. in the times of the Apostles and after them for many years when one of the Presbytery was made Episcopus Praeses even then Communi Presbyterorum Consilio Ecclesiae gubernabantur saith Jerome and Episcopos magis consuetudine quam Dispositionis Divinae veritate Presbyteris esse majores in commune debere Ecclesiam regere 5. Far be it from me to think such a thought as that Your Majesty did intend any Fallacy in Your other main Argument from Antiquity As we are to distinguish between Intentio operantis and Conditio operis so may we in this case consider the difference between Intentio Argumentantis and Conditio Argumenti And where Your Majesty argues That if Your opinion be not admitted we will be forced to give place to the Interpretation of private spirits which is contrary to the Doctrine of the Apostle Peter and will prove to be of dangerous consequence I humbly offer to be considered by Your Majesty what some of chief note among the Papists themselves have taught us That the Interpretation of Scriptures and the Spirits whence they proceed may be called private in a threefold sense 1. Ratione Personae if the Interpreter be of a private condition 2. Ratione Modi Medii when Persons although not private use not the publick means which are necessary for finding out the
for example had Authority to perform such Acts and Offices of Church-Government as his Majesty hath not yet found by any thing represented unto Him by you or any other from the Scripture that a single Presbyter ever had authority to perform which is enough to prove that the Community of Names in some places notwithstanding the Functions themselves are in other places by their proper work sufficiently distinguished But for the Name Episcopus or Bishop His Majesty hath long since learned from those that are skilful in the Greek tongue that it imports properly no more than an Overseer one that hath the charge or inspection of some thing committed unto him as hee that is set to watch a Beacon or to keep Sheep whence in the New Testament and in the Ecclesiastical use it is applied to such persons as have the Care and Inspection of the Churches of Christ committed unto them in Spiritualibus as both Bishops and Presbyters have in some sort but with this difference that mere Presbyters are Episcopi gregis only they have the oversight of the Flock in the duties of Preaching Administration of Sacraments Publick Prayer Exhorting Rebuking c. but Bishops are Episcopi gregis and Pastorum too having the oversight of the Flock and Pastors within their several Precincts in the acts of external Government so that the common work of both Functions is the Ministry of the Gospel but that which is peculiar to the Function of Bishops as distinguished from Presbyters is Church-Government It is not therefore to be wondred if it should happen in the New Testament the word Episcopus to be usually applied unto Presbyters who were indeed Overseers of the flock rather than unto Church-Governors who had then another Title of greater Eminency whereby to distinguish them from ordinary Presbyters to wit that of Apostles But when the government of Churches came into the hands of their Successors the names were by common usage which is the best Master of words very soon appropriated that of Episcopus to the Ecclesiastical Governor or Bishop of a Diocese and that of Presbyter to the ordinary Minister or Priest His Majesty had rather cause to wonder That upon such premises you should conclude with so much confidence as if the point were rendred most clear to the Judgment of most men both ancient and of latter times That there is no such Officer to be found in the Scriptures of the New Testament as a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter whenas His Majesty remembreth to have seen cited by such Authors as He hath no reason to suspect both out of the ancient Fathers and Councils and out of sundry modern Writers even of those Reformed Churches that want Bishops great variety of Testimonies to the contrary His Majesty is not satisfied with your Answer concerning the Apostles exercise of Episcopal Government which you would put off by referring it to their extraordinary Calling Our Saviour himself was the first and chief Apostle and Bishop of our Souls sent by the Father and Anointed by the Holy Ghost to be both the Teacher and the Governour of his Church By that Mission he receiv'd Authority and by his Unction ability for those works which he performed in his own person whilst he lived upon the earth Before he left the world that the Church might not want Teaching and Governing to the worlds end he chose certain persons upon whom he conferred both these Powers whereby they became also Apostles and Bishops by making them partakers both of his Mission before his Ascension As my Father sent me so send I you and of his Vnction shortly after his Ascension when he poured upon them the Holy Ghost at Pentecost The Mission both for teaching and governing at least for the substance of it was ordinary and to continue to the end of the world Matt. xxviii 18 20. and therefore necessarily to descend and be by them transmitted to others as their Substitutes and Successors But the Vnction whereby they were enabled to both Offices or Functions by the effusion of the Holy Ghost in such a plenteous measure of Knowledg Tongues Miracles Prophecyings Healing Infallibility of Doctrine discerning of spirits and such like was indeed extraordinary in them and in some few others though in an inferiour measure as God saw it needful for the planting of the Churches and propagation of the Gospel in those Primitive times and in this which was indeed extraordinary in them they were not necessarily to have Successors But it seems very unreasonable to attribute the exercise of that Power whether of Teaching or Governing to an extraordinary calling which being of necessary and continual use in the Church must therefore of necessity be the work of a Function of ordinary and perpetual use Therefore the Acts of Governing of the Church were no more nor otherwise extraordinary in the Apostles than the Acts of Teaching the Church were that is to say both extraordinary for the manner of performance in respect of their more than ordinary abilities for the same and yet both ordinary for the substance of the Offices themselves and the works to be performed therein and in these two ordinary Offices their ordinary Successors are Presbyters and Bishops Presbyters qua Presbyters immediately succeeding them in the Office of Teaching and Bishops qua Bishops immediately in the Office of Governing The instances of Timothy and Titus you likewise endeavour to avoid by the pretension of an extraordinary calling But in this Answer besides the insufficiency thereof if all that is said therein could be proved His Majesty findeth very little satisfaction 1. First you say that Timothy and Titus were by Office Evangelists whereas of Titus the Scriptures no where affirm any such thing at all and by your own Rule your Authority without Scripture will beget if that but a humane Faith neither doth the Text clearly Prove that Timothy was so 2. Setting aside mens conjectures which can breed but an humane Faith neither you cannot make it appear by any Text of Scripture that the Office of an Evangelist is such as you have described it The work of an Evangelist which Saint Paul exhorteth Timothy to do seems by the Context 2 Tim iv 5. to be nothing but diligence in preaching the Word notwithstanding all impediments and oppositions 3. That which you so confidently affirm That Timothy and Titus acted as Evangelists is not onely denyed but clearly refuted by Scultetus Gerard and others yea even with scorn rejected of late as His Majesty is informed by some rigid Presbyterians as Gillespy Rutherford c. And that which you so confidently deny that Timothy and Titus were Bishops is not onely confirmed by the consentient testimony of all Antiquity even Jerome himself having recorded it that they were Bishops and that of St. Paul's ordination and acknowledged by very many late Divines but a Catalogue also of 27. Bishops of Ephesus lineally succeeding from Timothy our of good records is vouched by
disaffection to Bishops have endeavoured to descredit the whole Volume of them by all possible means without any regard either of ingenuity or truth yet sundry of them are such as being attested by the Suffrages of Antiquity cannot with any forehead be denied to be his and there is scarce any of them which doth not give testimony to the Prelacy of a Bishop above a Presbyter Ignatius himself also was a Bishop of Antioch and a holy Martyr for the Faith of Christ 4. You grant that not long after the Apostles times Bishops are found in the Writers of those times as in some superiority to Presbyters but you might have added farther out of these Writers if you had pleased that there were some of them as James at Jerusalem Timothy at Ephesus Titus in Crete Mark at Alexandria Linus and Clement at Rome Polycarpus at Smyrna constituted and ordained Bishops of these places by the Apostles themselves and all of them reputed Successors to the Apostles in their Episcopal Office And His Majesty presumeth you could not be ignorant that all or most of the testimonies you recite of the ancient Fathers Writers of the middle ages Schoolmen and Canonists and the Book published under King Hen. the 8. do but either import the promiscuous and indifferent use of the names of Bishops and Presbyters whereof advantage ought not to be made to take away the difference of the things or else they relate to a School-point which in respect of the thing it self is but a very nicety disputed pro and con by curious questionists Vtrum Episcopatus sit or do vel gradus both sides in the mean time acknowledging the right of Church-government to be in the Bishops alone and not in the Presbyters as also that there may be produced either from the very same Writers or from others of as good authority or credit testimonies both for number and clearness far beyond those by you mentioned to assert the three different Degrees or Orders call them whether you will of Ecclesiastical Functions viz. the Bishop the Presbyter and the Deacon As to that which you add lastly concerning the difference between Primitive Episcopacy and the present Hierarchy albeit His Majesty doth not conceive that the accessions or additions granted by the favour of His Royal Progenitors for the enlarging of the Power or Privileges of Bishops have made or indeed can make the Government really and substantially to differ from what formerly it was no more than the addition of Arms or Ornaments can make a body really and substantially to differ from it self naked or devested of the same nor can think it either necessary or yet expedient that the elections of the Bishops or some other Circumstantials touching their Persons or Office should be in all respects the same under Christian Princes as it was when Christians lived among Pagans and under Persecution yet His Majesty so far approveth of your Answer in that behalf that he thinketh it well worthy the studies and endeavours of the Divines of both Opinions laying aside Emulation and private Interests to reduce Episcopacy and Presbytery into such a well-proportioned Form of Superiority and Subordination as may best resemble the Apostolical and Primitive times so far forth as the different condition of times and the exigences of all considerable circumstances will admit so as the power of Church-Government in the particular of Ordination which is meerly spiritual may remain Authoritative in the Bishop but that Power not to be exercised without the concurrence or assistance of his Presbytery as Timothy was ordained by the authority of St Paul ii Tim. i. 6. but with the concurrence or assistance of the Presbytery i Tim. iv 14. Other powers of Government which belong to Jurisdiction though they are in the Bishops as before is exprest yet the outward exercise of them may be ordered and disposed or limited by the Sovereign power to which by the Laws of the Land and the acknowledgement of the Clergy they are subodinate but His Majesty doubteth whether it be in your power to give Him any present assurance that in the desired Abolition of the present Hierarchy the utter abolishing of Episcopacy and consequently of the Primitive Episcopacy is neither included nor intended As to the last part of His Majesties Paper His Majesty would have been satisfied if you had been more particular in your Answer thereunto You tell Him in general that there are Substantials in Church-Government appointed by Christ c. but you neither say what those Substantials are nor in whose hands they are left whereas His Majesty expected that you should have declared your opinions clearly whether Christ or his Apostles left any certain Form of Government to be observed in all Christian Churches then whether the same binds all Churches to the perpetual observation thereof or whether they may upon occasion alter the same either in whole or in part likewise whether that certain Form of Government which Christ and his Apostles have appointed as perpetual and unalterable if they have appointed any such at all be the Episcopal or the Presbyterian or some other differing from them both And whereas in the conclusion you beseech His Majesty to look rather to the Original of Bishops than to their Succession His Majesty thinks it needful to look at both especially since their Succession is the best clue the most certain and ready way to find out their Original His Majesty having returned you this Answer doth profess that as whatsoever was of weight in yours shall have influence on Him so He doubts not but somewhat may appear to you in His which was not so clear to you before and if this Debate may have this end that it dispose others to the temper of accepting Reason as it shall Him of endeavouring to give satisfaction in all He can to His two Houses His Majesty believes though it hath taken up it hath not mis-spent His time Newport Octob. 6. IV. The Humble Answer of the Divines attending the Honourable Commissioners of Parliament at the Treaty at Newport in the Isle of Wight to the Second Paper delivered to them by His Majesty Octob. 6. 1648. Delivered to His Majesty Octob. 17. May it please Your Majesty AS in our Paper of October the third in Answer to Your Majesties of October the second we did so now again we do acknowledg that the Scriptures cited in the Margin of Your Majesties Paper do prove that the Apostles in their own persons that Timothy and Titus and the Angels of the Churches had power respectively to do those things which are in those places of Scripture specified But as then so now also we humbly do deny that any of the persons or Officers fore-mentioned were Bishops as distinct from Presbyters or did exercise Episcopal Government in that sense or that this was in the least measure proved by the alledged Scriptures And therefore our Negative not being to the same point or state of the Question which
was affirmed we humbly conceive that we should not be interpreted to have in effect denied the very same thing which we had before granted or to have acknowledged that the several Scriptures do prove the thing for which they are cited by Your Majesty And if that which we granted were all that by the Scripture cited in Your Margin Your Majesty intended to prove it will follow that nothing hath yet been proved on Your Majesties part to make up that Conclusion which is pretended As then we stood upon the Negative to that Assertion so we now crave leave to represent to Your Majesty that Your Reply doth not infirm the Evidence given in maintenance thereof The reason given by Your Majesty in this Paper to support Your Assertion That the persons that exercised the power aforesaid were Bishops in distinct sense is taken from a description of Episcopal Government which is as Your Majesty saith nothing else but the Government of the Churches within a certain Precinct commonly called a Diocess committed to one single person with sufficient authority over the Presbyters and people of those Churches for that end which Government so described being for substance of the thing it self in all the three forementioned particulars Ordaining giving rules of Discipline and Censures found in Scriptures except we will contend about names and words must be acknowledged in the sense aforesaid to be sufficiently proved from Scriptures And Your Majesty saith farther that the Bishops do not challenge more or other power to belong to them in respect of their Episcopal Office as it is distinct from that of Presbyters than what properly falls under one of those three We desire to speak both to the Bishops Challenge and to Your Majesties Description of Episcopal Government And first to their Challenge because it is first exprest in Your Majesties Reply The Challenge we undertake in two respects 1. In respect of the Power challenged 2. in respect of that ground or Tenure upon which the claim is laid The Power challenged consists of three particulars Ordaining giving Rules of Discipline and Censures No more no other in respect of their Episcopal Office We see not by what warrant this Writ of partition is taken forth by which the Apostolical Office is thus shared or divided the Governing part into the Bishops hands the Teaching and administring Sacraments into the Presbyters For besides that the Scripture makes no such inclosure or partition-wall it appears the challenge is grown to more than was pretended unto in the times of grown Episcopacy Jerome and Chrysostom do both acknowledg for their time that the Bishop and Presbyter differed only in the matter of Ordination and learned Doctor Bilson makes some abatement in the claim of three saying the things proper to Bishops which might not be common to Presbyters are singularity of Succeeding and superiority in Ordaining The Tenure or ground upon which the claim is made is Apostolical which with us is all one with Divine Institution And this as far as we have learned hath not been anciently openly or generally avowed in this Church of England either in time of Popery or of the first Reformation and whensoever the pretension hath been made it was not without the contradiction of learned and godly men The abettors of the challenge that they might resolve it at last into the Scripture did chuse the most plausible way of ascending by the scale of Succession going up the River to find the Head but when they came to Scriptures and found it like the head of Nile which cannot be found they shrouded it under the name and countenance of the Angels of the Churches and of Timothy and Titus Those that would carry it higher endeavoured to impe it into the Apostolical Office and so at last called it a Divine Institution not in force of any express precept but implicite practice of the Apostles and so the Apostolical Office excepting the gifts or enablements confest only extraordinary is brought down to be Episcopal and the Episcopal raised up to be Apostolical Whereupon it follows that the Highest Officers in the Church are put into a lower orb an extraordinary Office turned into an ordinary a distinct Office confounded with that which in the Scripture is not found a temporary and an extinct Office revived And indeed if the definitions of both be rightly made they are so incompetible to the same subject that he that will take both must lose that one aut Apostolus Episcopatum aut Apostolatum Episcopus For the Apostles though they did not in many things act aliud yet they acted alio nomine alio munere then Presbyters or Bishops do and if they were indeed Bishops and their Government properly Episcopal in distinct sense then it is not needful to go so far about to prove Episcopal government of Divine Institution because they practised it but to assert expresly that Christ instituted it immediately in them For Your Majesties Definition of Episcopal Government it is extracted out of the Bishops of later date than Scripture-times and doth not sute to that Meridian under which there were more Bishops than one in a Precinct or Church and it is as fully competent to Archiepiscopal and Patriarchal Government as Episcopal The parts of this definition materially and abstractly considered may be found in Scripture The Apostles Timothy and Titus were single persons but not limited to a Precinct The Government of the Angel was limited to a Precinct but not in single persons In several Offices not to be confounded the parts of this definition may be found but the aggregation of them all together into one ordinary Officer cannot be found And if that word ordinary and standing Government had made the Genus in your Majesties Definition as it ought to be we should crave leave to say it would be gratis dictum if not petitio principii for the Scripture doth not put all these parts together in a Bishop who never borrowed of Apostles Evangelists and Angels the matter of Governing and Ordaining and left the other of Teaching dispensing Sacraments and dealing only in foro interno to Presbyters until after-times By this that hath been said it is manifest enough that we contend not first de nomine about the Name of Episcopal Government which yet though names serve for distinction is not called or distinguished by the name in Scripture nor secondly de opere about the Work whether the work of Governing Ordering Preaching c. be of continuance in the Church which we clearly acknowledg But thirdly de munere about the Office it being a great fallacy to argue That the Apostles did the same work which Bishops or Presbyters are to do in ordinary Therefore they were of the same Office For as it is said of the liberal and learned Arts one and the same thing may be handled in divers of them and yet these Arts are distinguisht by formalis ratio of handling of them so we say of
Scripture-Original of a Bishop which is declared against by a cloud of Witnesses named in the latter end of our former Answer unto which we should refer if matter of right were not properly triable by Scripture as matter of Fact is by Testimony We said that the Apostles were the highest Order of Officers of the Church that they were extraordinary that they were distinguisht from all other Officers and that their Government was not Episcopal but Apostolical To which Answer Your Majesty being not satisfied doth oppose certain Assertions That Christ himself and the Apostles received their Authority by Mission their Ability by Vnction That the Mission of the Apostles was ordinary and to continue to the end of the World but the Vnction whereby they were enabled to both Offices and Functions Teaching and Governing was indeed extraordinary That in their Vnction they were not necessarily to have Successors but necessarily in their Mission or Office of Teaching and Governing That in these two ordinary Offices their ordinary Successors are Presbyters and Bishops That Presbyters qua Presbyters do immediately succeed them in the Office of Teaching and Bishops qua Bishops immediately in the Office of Governing the demonstration of which last alone would have carried in it more conviction than all these Assertions put together Officers are distinguished by that whereby they are constituted their Commission which being produced signed by one place of Scripture gives surer evidence than a Pedigree drawn forth by such a series of distinctions as do not distinguish him into another Officer from a Presbyter Whether this chain of distinction be strong and the links of it sufficiently tackt together we crave leave to examine Christ saith Your Majesty was the Apostle and Bishop of our Souls and he made the Apostles both Apostles and Bishops We do not conceive that Your Majesty means that the Apostles succeeded Christ as the chief Apostle and that as Bishops they succeed Christ as a Bishop lest thereby Christ his Mission as an Apostle and Bishop might be conceived as ordinary as their Mission is said to be but we apprehend Your Majesty to mean that the Office of Apostle and Bishop was eminently contained in Christs Office as the Office of a Bishop was eminently contained in that of Apostleship but thence it will not follow that inferior Offices being contained in the superior eminently are therefore existent in it formally For because all Honours and Dignities are eminently contained in Your Majesty would it therefore follow that Your Majesty is formally and distinctly a Baron of the Realm as it is asserted the Apostles to have been Bishops in distinct sense That Mission refers to Office and Authority and Vnction only to Ability we cannot consent for besides that the breathing of Christ upon his Disciples saying Receive ye the Holy Ghost doth refer to mission as well as unction we conceive that in the proper anointing of Kings or other Officers the natural use and effect of the oil upon the body was not so much intended as the solemn and ceremonious use of it in the Inauguration of them So there is relation to Office in unction as well as to conferring of abilities else how are Kings or Priests or Prophets said to be anointed And what good sense could be made of that expression in Scripture of anointing one in anothers room To omit that Christ by this construction should be called the Messias in respect of Abilities only And although we should grant Your Majesties explication of Mission and Vnction yet it will not follow that the mission of the Apostles was ordinary and their unction only extraordinary That into which there is succession was ordinary that into which there is no succession for succession is not unto abilities or gifts extraordinary and so the Apostles were ordinary Officers in all whereunto there is properly any succession and that is Office They differed from Bishops in that wherein one Apostle or Officer of the same order might differ from another to wit in abilities and measure of Spirit but not in that wherein one order of Officers is above another by their Office To which we cannot give consent For since no man is denominated an Officer from his meer abilities or gifts so neither can the Apostles be called extraordinary Officers because of extraordinary gifts but that the Apostles Mission and Office as their abilities was extraordinary and temporary doth appear in that it was by immediate Commission from Christ without any intervention of men either in Election or Ordination for planting an authoritative governing of all Churches through the World comprehending in it all other Officers of the Church whatsoever and therefore it seems to us very unreasonable that the Office and Authority of the Apostles should be drawn down to an ordinary thereby to make it as it were a fit stock into which the ordinary Office of a Bishop may be ingrafted nor doth the continuance of Teaching and Governing in the Church more render the Office of teaching and governing in the Apostles an ordinary Office than the Office of teaching and governing in Christ himself renders his Office therefore ordinary The reason given That the Office of Teaching and Governing was ordinary in the Apostles because of the continuance of them in the Church we crave leave to say is that great mistake which runs through the whole file of Your Majesties Discourse for tho there be a Succession in the Work of Teaching and Governing yet there is no Succession in the Commission or Office by which the Apostles performed them for the Office of Christ of Apostles of Evangelists or Prophets is thence also concluded ordinary as to Teaching and Governing and the distinction of Offices Extraordinary and Ordinary eatenus destroyed The Succession may be into the same Work not into the same Commission and Office The ordinary Officers which are to manage the work of Teaching and Government are constituted settled and limited by warrant of Scripture as by another Commission than that which the Apostles had And if Your Majesty had shewn us some Record out of Scripture warranting the division of the Office of Teaching and Governing into two hands and the appropriation of Teaching to Presbyters of Governing to Bishops the question had been determined otherwise we must look upon the dissolving of the Apostolical Office and distribution of it into these two hands as the dictate of men who have a mind by such a precarious Argument to challenge to themselves the Keys of Authority and leave the Word to the Presbyters In our answer to the instances of Timothy and Titus which Doctor Bilson acknowledgeth to be the main erection of Episcopal power if the proof of their being Bishops do stand or subversion if the answer that they were Evangelists be good Your Majesty finds very little satisfaction though all that is said therein could be proved First because the Scriptures no where imply any such thing at all that Titus was an Evangelist
Timothy then next at Athens from whence Paul sends him to Thessalonica afterwards having been in Macedonia he came to Paul at Corinth and after that he is with Paul at Ephesus and thence sent by him into Macedonia whiter Paul went after him and was by Timothy accompanied into Asia who was with him at Troas and Miletus to which place S. Paul sent for the Presbyters of the Church in Ephesus and gave them that solemn charge to take heed unto themselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost had made them Bishops not speaking a word of recommendation of that Church to Timothy or of him to the Elders And if Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus he must needs be so when the first Epistle was sent to him in which he is pretended to receive the charge of exercising his Episcopal power in Ordination and Government but it is manifest that after this Epistle sent to him he was in continual Journeys or absent from Ephesus For Paul left him at Ephesus when he went into Macedonia and he left him there to exercise his Office in regulating and ordering that Church and in ordaining but it was after this time that Timothy is found with Paul at Miletus for after Paul had been at Miletus he went to Jerusalem whence he was sent prisoner to Rome and never came more into Macedonia and at Rome we find Timothy a prisoner with him and those Epistles which Paul wrote while he was prisoner at Rome namely the Epistle to the Philippians to Philemon to the Colossians to the Hebrews do make mention of Timothy as his companion at these times nor do we ever find him again at Ephesus for we find that after all this towards the end of St. Paul's life after his first answering before Nero and when he said his departure was at hand he sent for Timothy to Rome not from Ephesus for it seems that Timothy was not there because Paul giving Timothy an account of the absence of most of his companions sent into divers parts he saith Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus Now if Your Majesty shall be pleased to cast up into one total that which is said the several journeys and stations of Timothy the order of them the time spent in them the nature of his employment to negotiate the affairs of Christ in several Churches and places the silence of the Scriptures as touching his being Bishop of any one Church you will acknowledg that such a man was not a Bishop fixed to one Church or Precinct and then by assuming that Timothy was such a man you will conclude that he was not Bishop of Ephesus The like conclusion may be inferred from the like premisses from the instance of Titus whom we find at Jerusalem before he came to Crete from whence he is sent for to Nicopolis and after that he is sent to Corinth from whence he is expected at Troas and met with Paul in Macedonia whence he is sent again to Corinth and after all this is near the time of Paul's death at Rome from whence he went not into Crete but into Dalmatia and after this is not heard of in the Scripture And so we hope Your Majesty doth conceive that we affirm not upon very weak proofs that Timothy and Titus were from Ephesus and Crete removed to other places In the fifth exception Your Majesty takes notice of two places of Scripture cited by us to prove that they were called away from those places of Ephesus and Crete which they do not conclude much of themselves yet being accompanied by two other places which Your Majesty takes no notice of may seem to conclude more and these i Tim. i. 3. Titus i. 5. as I be sought thee to abide still at Ephesus for this cause left I thee in Crete in both which is specified the occasional employment for which they made stay in those places and the expressions used I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus I left thee in Crete do not sound like words of instalment of a man into a Bishoprick but of an intendment to call them away again and if the first and last be put together his actual revocation of them both the intimation of his intention that they should not stay there for continuance and the reason of his beseeching the one to stay and of his leaving the other behind him which was some present defects and distempers in those Churches they will put fair to prove that the Apostle intended not to establish them Bishops of those places and therefore did not For the Postscripts because your Majesty lays no great weight upon them we shall not be solicitous in producing evidence against them though they do bear witness in a matter of fact which in our opinion never was and in Your Majesties Judgment was long before they were born And so we conclude this discourse about Timothy and Titus with this observation that in the same very Epistle of Paul to Timothy out of which Your Majesty hath endeavoured to prove that he was a Bishop and did exercise Episcopal Government there is clear evidence both for Presbyters imposing hands in Ordination and for their Ruling In the next point concerning the Angels of the Churches tho Your Majesty faith that you lay no weight upon the Allegory or Mystery of the denomination yet you assert that the persons bearing that name were personae singulares and in a word Bishops who yet are never so called in Scripture and the allegorical denomination of Angels or Stars which in the Judgment of ancient and modern Writers doth belong to the faithful Ministers and Preachers of the Word in general is appropriate as we may so say to the Mitre and Crosier-staff and so opposed to many express testimonies of Scripture And if Your Majesty had been particular in that wherein You say the strength of Your instance lies viz. the Judgment of all ancient and of the best modern Writers and many probabilities in the Text it self we hope to have made it apparent that many ancient and eminent modern Writers many probabilitirs out of the Text it self do give evidence to the contrary To that which is asserted That these singular persons were Bishops in distinct sense whether we brought any thing of moment to infirm this we humbly submit to Your Majesties Judgment and shall only present to You that in Your Reply You have not taken notice of that which in our Answer seems to us of moment which is this That in Mysterious and prophetick writings or visional representation such as this of the Stars and golden Candlesticks is a number of things and persons is usually exprest in singulars and this in Visions is the usual way of Representation of things a thousand persons making up one Church is represented by one Candlestick many Ministers making up one Presbytery by one Angel And because Your Majesty seems to
that Ignatius cannot be distinctly known in Ignatius And if we take him in gross we make him the Patron as Baronius and the rest of the Popish Writers do of such rites and observations as the Church in his time cannot be thought to have owned He doth indeed give testimony to the Prelacy of a Bishop above a Presbyter that which may justly render him suspected is that he gives too much Honour saith he the Bishop as God's high Priest and after him you must honour the King He was indeed a holy Martyr and his writings have suffered Martyrdom as well as he Corruptions could not go current but under the credit of worthy Names That which Your Majesty saith in Your fourth Paragraph that we might have added if we had pleased That James Timothy Titus c. were constituted and ordained Bishops of the forementioned places respectively and that all the Bishops of those times were reputed Successors to the Apostles in their Episcopal Office we could not have added it without prejudice as we humbly conceive to the truth for the Apostles did not ordain any of themselves Bishops nor could they do it for even by Your Majesties Concession they were Bishops before viz. as they were Apostles nor could any Apostle his choice of a certain Region or place to exercise his function in whilst he pleased render him a Bishop any more than Paul was Bishop of the Gentiles Peter of the Circumcision Neither did the Apostles ordain the Evangelists Bishops of those places unto which they sent them nor were the Bishops of those times any more than as Your Majesty saith reputed Successors to the Apostles in their Episcopal Office they came after the Apostles in the Churches by them planted so might Presbyters do But that 's not properly succession at least not succession into Office and this we say with a Salvo to our Assertion That in those times there were no such Bishops distinct from Presbyters Neither do we understand whether the words Episcopal Office in this Section refer to the Bishops or Apostles for in reference to Apostles it insinuates a distinction of the Apostles Office into Apostolical and Episcopal or that the Office Apostolical was wholly Episcopal unto neither of which we can give our consent for reasons forementioned To the testimonies by us recited in proof of two only Orders Your Majesty answers first That the promiscuous use of the names of Bishops and Presbyters is imported That which Your Majesty not long ago called our old fallacy is now Your Answer only with this difference we under promiscuous names hold the same Office Your Majesty under promiscuous names supposes two which if as it is often asserted was but once proved we should take it for a determination of this Controversie Secondly that they relate to a School-point or a nicety utrum Episcopatus fit or do vel gradus both sides of the questionists or disputants in the mean time acknowledging the right of Church-government in the Bishops alone It is confest by us that that question as it is stated by Popish Authors is a curious nicety to which we have no eye or reference for though the same Officers may differ from and excel others of the same order in Gifts or Qualifications yet the Office it self is one and the same without difference or degrees as one Apostle or Presbyter is not superior to another in the degree of Office they that are of the same Order are of the same degree in respect of Office as having Power and Authority to the same Acts. Nor doth the Scripture warrant or allow any Superiority of one over another of the same Order and therefore the proving of two Orders only in the Church is a demonstration that Presbyters and Bishops are the same In which point the Scripture will counter-balance the testimonies of those that assert three degrees or orders though ten for one But for easing of Your Majesty of the trouble of producing testimonies against those cited by us we make this humble motion that the Regiments on both sides may be discharged out of the field and the Point disputed by Dint of holy Scripture Id verum quod primum Having passed through the Argumentative parts of Your Majesties Reply wherein we should account it a great happiness to have given Your Majesty any satisfaction in order whereunto You pleased to honour us with this employment we shall contract our selves in the remainder craving Your Majesties pardon if You shall conceive us to have been too much in the former and too little in that which follows We honour the pious intentions and munificence of Your Royal Progenitors and do acknowledge that Ornamental Accessions granted to the Person do not make any substantial change in the Office the real difference betwixt that Episcopal Government which first obtained in the Church and the present Hierarchy consists in ipso regimine modo regiminis which cannot be clearly demonstrated in particulars until it be agreed on both sides what that Episcopacy was then and what the Hierarchy is now and then it would appear whether these three forementioned Essentials of Episcopal Government were the same in both For the Power under Christian Princes and under Pagan is one and the same though the Exercise be not And we humbly receive Your Majesties pious Advertisement not unlike that of Constantine's stirring us up as men unbiassed with private interests to study the nearest Accommodation and best resemblance to the Apostolical and Primitive times But for Your Majesties Salvo to the Bishops sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction and that distinction of Ordination Authoritative in the Bishop and Concomitant in the Presbytery which You seem to found upon these two Texts 11 Tim. i. 6. 1 Tim. IV. 14. and which is used by Dr. Bilson and other Defenders of Episcopacy in explication of that Canon of the fourth Council of Carthage which enjoyns the joynt imposition of the Bishops and Presbyters hands we shall give Your Majesty an accompt when we shall be called to the inquisition thereof Albeit that we do not for the present see but that this Proviso of Your Majesty renders our accommodation to the Apostolical and Primitive times whereunto You did exhort us unfeisible We notwithstanding do fully profess our acknowledgement of subordination of the outward exercise of Jurisdiction to the Sovereign power and our accomptableness to the Laws of the Land As for Your Majesties three Questions of great importance Whether there be a certain form of Government left by Christ and his Apostles to be observed by all Christian Churches Whether it bind perpetually or be upon occasion alterable in whole or in part Whether that certain form of Government be the Episcopal Presbyterian or some other differing from them hoth The whole Volume of Ecclesiastical Policy is contained in them and we hope that neither Your Majesty expected of us a particular Answer to them at this time nor will take offence at us if
we hold only to that which is the question in order to the Bill of Abolition For we humbly profess our readiness to serve Your Majesty in Answering these or any other questions within our proper cognisance according to the proportion of our mean abilities For Your Majesties Condescension in vouchsafing us the liberty and honour of examining Your learned Reply cloathed in such Excellency of Style and for Your exceeding Candour shewed to such men as we are and for the acceptation of our humble duty we render to Your Majesty most humble Thanks and shall pray That such a Pen in the hand of such Abilities may ever be employed in a Subject worthy of it That your Majesty would please to consider that in this point under debate Succession is not the best Clue and most certain and ready way to find out the Original for to go that way is to go the furthest way about yea to go backward and when You are at the Spring viz. the Scripture it self You go to the Rivers end that You may seek the Spring And that the Lord would guide Your Majesty and the two Houses of Parliament by the right hand of his Counsel and shew You a happy way of healing our unhappy Differences and of settling the Commonwealth of Jesus Christ which is the Church so as all the members thereof may live under You in all Godliness Peace and Honesty V. His MAJESTIES Final Answer concerning Episcopacy Nov. 1. MDCXLVIII WHat you have offered by way of Reply to His Majesties Second Paper of October 6. in yours of October 17. in order to the further satisfaction of His Conscience in the point of Episcopacy His Majesty heard when it was publickly read by you with diligent attention and hath since so far as His leisure would permit taken the same into his private and serious Consideration Wherein His Majesty not only acknowledgeth your great Pains and Endeavours to inform His Judgment acording to such perswasions as your selves have in the matter in debate but also taketh special notice of the Civility of your applications to Him both in the Body and Conclusion of your Reply yet He cannot but observe withall that in very many things you either mistake His meaning and purpose in that Paper or at least come not up fully enough thereunto in this Reply Which to have shown will sufficiently remonstrate your present Reply to be unsatisfactory in that behalf without making a particular Answer to every passage in it which to a Paper of that length would require more time than His Majesty can think fit amidst the present weighty affairs to allow unto a debate of this nature Especially since His Majesty hath often found mutual returns of long Answers and Replies to have rather multiplied disputes by starting new Questions than informed the Conscience by removing former Scruples As to the Scriptures cited in the Margin of His Majesties first Paper It being granted by you that those Scriptures did prove the Apostles and others being single Persons to have exercised respectively the several powers in the Paper specified which powers by your own confession in this Reply Sect. 7. a single Person who is but a mere Presbyter hath no right to exercise and it being withall evident that a Bishop in the Ecclesiastical sense and as distinct from a Presbyter layeth claim to no more than to a peculiar right in the exercise of some or all of the said Powers which a mere Presbyter hath not the Conclusion seemeth natural and evident that such a Power of Church-Government as we usually call Episcopal is sufficiently proved by those Scriptures As to the Bishops Challenge First when you speak of a Writ of partition you seem to take His Majesties words as if He had shared and cantoned out the Episcopal Office one part to the Bishops alone another to the Presbyters alone and you fall upon the same again afterwards Sect. 6. Whereas His Majesties meaning was and by His words appeareth so to have been that one part of the Office that of Teaching c. was to be common to both alike but the other part that of Governing Churches peculiar to the Bishop alone Secondly you infer from His Majesties words That the Bishops Challenge appeareth to be grown to more than was formerly pretended to Which inference His Majesties words by you truly cited if rightly understood will not bear For having proved from Scripture the power of Church-Government in all the three mentioned Particulars to have been exercised by the Apostles and others His Majesty said but this only That the Bishops challenge no more or other power to belong unto them in respect of their Episcopal Office than what properly falleth under one of these three The Words are true for he that believeth they challenge not so much might safely say they challenge no more But the Inference is not good For he that saith they challenge no more doth not necessarily imply they challenge all that In the power of Ordination which is purely spiritual His Majesty conceiveth the Bishops challenge to have been much-what the same in all times of the Church and therefore it is that the matter of Ordination is most insisted on as the most constant and most evident difference between Bishops and Presbyters especially after the times of Constantine which His Majesty by your relating to Chrysostom and Hierom taketh to be the same you call the times of Grown Episcopacy But His Majesty seeth no necessity that the Bishops challenge to the power of Jurisdiction should be at all times as large as the exercise thereof appeareth at some times to have been the exercise thereof being variable according to the various conditions of the Church in different times And therefore His Majesty doth not believe that the Bishops under Christian Princes do challenge such an amplitude of Jurisdiction to belong unto them in respect of their Episcopal Office precisely as was exercised in the Primitive times by Bishops before the days of Constantine The reason of the difference being evident That in those former times under Pagan Princes the Church was a distinct Body of it self divided from the Commonwealth and so was to be governed by its own Rules and Rulers the Bishops therefore of those times tho they had no outward coercive power over mens Persons or Estates yet inasmuch as every Christian man when he became a Member of the Church did ipso facto and by that his own voluntary act put himself under their Government they exercised a very large power of Jurisdiction in Spiritualibus in making Ecclesiastical Canons receiving Accusations conventing the Accused examining Witnesses judging of Crimes excluding such as they found guilty of scandalous offences from the Lord's Supper enjoyning Penances upon them casting them out of the Church receiving them again upon their Repentance c. And all this they exercised as well over Presbyters as others But after that the Church under Christian Princes began to be
much of their Office as was ordinary and perpetual and such a distinction of Bishops and Presbyters as His Majesty hath formerly expressed needeth no further Confirmation from Scripture to such as are willing to make use of their Reason also which in interpreting Scripture upon all other occasions they are inforced to do nor any thing by you produced in this Paragraph any further Answer only that distinction of Eminently and Formally because you illustrate it by instancing in Himself His Majesty could not but take notice of which He either understandeth not or thinketh your Illustration thereof not to be very apposite for Actions and Operations flow from the Forms of things and demonstrate the same as Effects do their Causes The Apostles therefore acting in the ordinary exercise of Church-Government did act not Eminently only but Formally also as Bishops rather than Apostles As Concerning Timothy and Titus First Whether they were Evangelists or no His Majesty never meant to dispute Only because you often call for Scripture-proof His Majesty thought fit to admonish you that in your Answer you take two things for granted viz. that Timothy and Titus were Evangelists and that Evangelists were such Officers as you described neither of which if it should be denied you could clearly prove from Scripture alone without calling in the help of other Writers to attest it as in your Reply you have now done Master Hooker's neither have you indeed brought any thing in this Reply out of Scripture to prove either of both sufficient to convince him that were of a contrary mind Secondly you seem Sect. 12. to mistake that which was the Third Point in that part of His Majesties Paper which was not Whether Timothy and Titus were Evangelists or no concerning which His Majesty neither did nor doth contend but Whether in the Church-Government they exercised they acted as Evangelists as you affirm and so only as extraordinary Officers or not Zuinglius having said that the Name of a Bishop and Evangelist is the same thing proveth it from ii Tim. iv and concludeth Constat idem fuisse officium utriusque Bishop and Evangelist the same Office both Gerard saith the word Evangelist in that place is taken generally and not in the special sense that is to say for a Minister of the Gospel at large and the Context there indeed seemeth to import no more and not for an Evangelist by peculiar Office And Scultetus not only affirmeth that Saint Paul appointed Timothy and Titus to Ephesus and Crete not as Evangelists but as Church-Governours but saith further that the Epistles written to them both do evince it and also bringeth Reasons to prove it Upon what particular Reasons Gillespy c. reject the conceit of their acting as Evangelists His Majesty certainly knows not But if this be one of their Arguments as to their best remembrance from whom His Majesty had the Information it is That if whatsoever is alleged from the Scripture to have been done by the Apostles and by Timothy and Titus in point of Ordination Discipline and Government may be eluded by this that they acted therein as extraordinary Officers there will be no proof at all from Scripture of any power left in any ordinary Church-Officer to the purposes aforesaid His Majesty then recommendeth to your most sober thoughts to consider First how this Conceit of their acting as extraordinary Ministers only tends to the subversion of all Ministers as well as of the Bishops since upon this very ground especially the Socinians deny all Mission and Ordination of Ministers in the Church and Secondly if the contrary be proved by Gillespy c. by good Arguments that they acted as ordinary Officers in the Church then whether they have not thereby laid a better foundation for the claim of the Bishops viz. of Governing the Churches as single persons in Ordinary Office than either they or you are willing to acknowledg Thirdly His Majesty thinketh it a great liberty which you take in rendring the sense of His Reply as you have done viz. The Scriptures never call them Bishops but the Fathers do c. Whereas if you had followed His sense in that Paper you might rather have delivered thus The Scripture describeth them as Bishops and the Fathers call them so For that of yours The Scripture calls Timothy an Evangelist some of late have refuted it and rejected it with scorn you should have said rather The Scripture doth not any where affirm of Titus nor clearly prove of Timothy that they were by peculiar Office Evangelists but that in governing the Churches they acted as Evangelists or extraordinary Officers is by sundry late Writers the Evasion it self having been but of late time minted refuted and rejected For that of yours The Scripture relates their motion from Church to Church but some affirm them to be fixed at Ephesus and in Crete It should have been Neither doth their motion from Church to Church hinder but that they might afterward be fixed at Ephesus and in Crete neither doth their being Bishops of Ephesus and Crete hinder but that they might afterwards for propagation of the Gospel be by the Apostles appointment often imployed other-where For that of yours The Scripture makes distinction of Evangelists and Pastors but some say that Timothy and Titus were both It should have been The Scripture maketh no such distinction of Evangelists and Pastors but that the same persons might not only successively be both but even at the same time also be called by both Names Fourthly Tho you say You do not undervalue the Testimonies and Catalogues mentioned yet you endeavour which cometh not far short of undervaluing to lessen the reputation of both but too much Of those Testimonies by putting them off as if when they report Timothy and Titus and others to have been Bishops they speak but vulgarly or by way of allusion and not exactly as to the point in Debate But of Hierom upon whom you chiefly rely in this cause the contrary is evident who in his Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers wherein he was to deliver things Fide Historica and to describe the persons of such as are Registred in that Catalogue by their proper and known distinctive Titles and Styles expresly styleth Timothy Titus Mark Polycarp and others Bishops of such and such places and such on the other side as were but mere Presbyters Ecclesioe Antiochenoe or Alexandrinoe Presbyteri c. observing the difference so constantly and exactly throughout the whole Book that nothing can be more clear than that he understood the word Episcopus no otherwise than in the ordinary Ecclesiastical sense and as a Bishop is distinct from a Presbyter As for that passage you allege out of him by custome in the judgment of Learned men he must mean the practice of the Apostolick times and by Dominica dispositio the express Precept of Christ unless you will have himself contradict what himself hath written in sundry other places whose Testimonies
from the effects of blind Zeal and over-bold Devotion XVII Of the Differences between the KING and the Two Houses in point of CHURCH-GOVERNMENT TOuching the Government of the Church by Bishops the common Jealousie hath been that I am earnest and resolute to maintain it not so much out of Piety as Policy and reason of State Wherein so far indeed reason of State doth induce Me to approve that Government above any other as I find it impossible for a Prince to preserve the State in quiet unless he hath such an influence upon Church-men and they such a dependance on Him as may best restrain the seditious exorbitancies of Ministers tongues who with the Keys of Heaven have so far the Keys of the Peoples Hearts as they prevail much by their Oratory to let in or shut out both Peace and Loyalty So that I being as KING intrusted by God and the Laws with the good both of Church and State I see no reason I should give up or weaken by any change that power and influence which in right and reason I ought to have over both The removing Bishops out of the House of Peers of which I have elsewhere given an account was sufficient to take off any suspicion that I encline to them for any use to be made of their Votes in State-affairs Tho indeed I never thought any Bishop worthy to sit in that House who would not Vote according to his Conscience I must now in Charity be thought desirous to preserve that Government in its right constitution as a matter of Religion wherein both my Judgment is fully satisfied that it hath of all other the fullest Scripture grounds and also the constant Practice of all Christian Churches till of late years the Tumultuariness of people or the Factiousness and Pride of Presbyters or the Covetousness of some States and Princes gave occasion to some mens wits to invent new models and propose them under the specious titles of Christs Government Scepter and Kingdom the better to serve their turns to whom the change was beneficial They must give Me leave having none of their temptations to invite Me to alter the Government of Bishops that I may have a title to their Estates not to believe their pretended grounds to any new ways contrary to the full and constant testimony of all Histories sufficiently convincing unbiassed men that as the Primitive Churches were undoubtedly governed by the Apostles and their immediate Successors the first and best Bishops so it cannot in Reason or Charity be supposed that all Churches in the world should either be ignorant of the Rule by them prescribed or so soon deviate from their Divine and Holy Pattern That since the first Age for fifteen hundred years not one Example can be produced of any setled Church wherein were many Ministers and Congregations which had not some Bishop above them under whose Jurisdiction and Government they were Whose constant and universal practice agreeing with so large and evident Scripture-Directions and Examples as are set down in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus for the setling of that Government not in the Persons only of Timothy and Titus but in the Succession the want of Government being that which the Church can no more dispense with in point of well-being than the want of the Word and Sacraments in point of being I wonder how men came to look with so envious an eye upon Bishops power and authority as to oversee both the Ecclesiastical use of them and Apostolical constitution which to Me seems no less evidently set forth as to the main scope and design of those Epistles for the setling of a peculiar Office Power and Authority in them as President-Bishops above others in point of Ordination Censures and other acts of Ecclesiastical Discipline than those shorter characters of the qualities and duties of Presbyter-Bishops and Deacons are described in some parts of the same Epistles who in the latitude and community of the name were then and may now not improperly be call'd Bishops as to the oversight and care of single Congregations committed to them by the Apostles or those Apostolical Bishops who as Timothy and Titus succeeded them in that ordinary power there assigned over larger divisions in which were many Presbyters The Humility of those first Bishops avoiding the eminent title of Apostles as a name in the Churches style appropriated from its common notion of a Messenger or one sent to that special Dignity which had extraordinary Call Mission Gifts and Power immediately from Christ they contented themselves with the ordinary titles of Bishops and Presbyters until use the great arbitrator of words and master of language finding reason to distinguish by a peculiar name those Persons whose Power and Office were indeed distinct from and above all other in the Church as succeeding the Apostles in the ordinary and constant power of governing the Churches the honour of whose name they moderately yet commendably declined all Christian Churches submitting to that special authority appropriated also the name of Bishop without any suspicion or reproach of arrogancy to those who were by Apostolical propagation rightly descended and invested into that highest and largest power of governing even the most pure and Primitive Churches which without all doubt had many such holy Bishops after the pattern of Timothy and Titus whose special power is not more clearly set down in those Epistles the chief grounds and limits of all Episcopal claim as from Divine Right than are the characters of these perilous times and those men that make them such who not enduring sound Doctrine and clear testimonies of all Churches practice are most perverse Disputers and proud Usurpers against true Episcopacy who if they be not Traitors and Boasters yet they seem to be very covetous heady high-minded inordinate and fierce lovers of themselves having much of the Form little of the power of Godliness Who by popular heaps of weak light and unlearned Teachers seek to over-lay and smother the pregnancy and authority of that power of Episcopal Government which beyond all equivocation and vulgar fallacy of names is most convincingly set forth both by Scripture and all after-Histories of the Church This I write rather like a Divine than a Prince that Posterity may see if ever these Papers be publick that I had fair grounds both from Scripture-Canons and Ecclesiastical Examples whereon my Judgment was stated for Episcopal Government Nor was it any Policy of State or obstinacy of Will or partiality of Affection either to the men or their Function which fixed Me who cannot in point of worldly respects be so considerable to Me as to recompence the injuries and losses I and My dearest Relations with My Kingdoms have sustained and hazarded chiefly at first upon this quarrel And not only in Religion of which Scripture is the best rule and the Churches Universal Practice the best commentary but also in right Reason and the true nature of Government it cannot be thought
as well as say it else you say little But that the conforming of the Church Discipline to the Civil Policy should be a depraving of it I absolutely deny for I aver that without it the Church can neither flourish nor be happy And for your last instance you shall do well to shew the prohibition of our Saviour against addition of more Officers in the Church than he named and yet in one sense I do not conceive that the Church of England hath added any for an Archbishop is only a distinction for Order of Government not a new Officer and so of the rest and of this kind I believe there are divers now in Scotland which you will not condemn as the Moderators of Assemblies and others 4. Where you find a Bishop and Presbyter in Scripture to be one and the same which I deny to be alwaies so it is in the Apostles time now I think to prove the Order of Bishops succeeded that of the Apostles and that the name was chiefly altered in reverence to those who were immediately chosen by our Saviour albeit in their time they caused divers to be called so as Barnabas and others so that I believe this Argument makes little for you As for your proof of the antiquity of Presbyterian Government it is well that the Assembly of Divines at Westminster can do more than Eusebius could and I shall believe when I see it for your former Paper affirms that those times were very dark for matter of fact and will be so still for Me if there be no clearer Arguments to prove it than those you mention for because there were divers Congregations in Jerusalem Ergo what are there not divers Parishes in one Diocess your two first I answer but as one Argument and because the Apostles met with those of the inferiour Orders for Acts of Government what then even so in these times do the Deans and Chapters and many times those of the inferiour Clergy assist the Bishops But I hope you will not pretend to say that there was an equality between the Apostles and other Presbyters which not being doth in My judgment quite invalidate these Arguments And if you can say no more for the Churches of Corinth Ephesus Thessalonica c. than you have for Jerusalem it will gain no ground on Me. As for Saint Jerome it is well known that he was no great Friend to Bishops as being none himself yet take him altogether and you will find that he makes a clear distinction between a Bishop and a Presbyter as your self confesses but the truth is he was angry with those who maintained Deacons to be equal to Presbyters 5. I am well satisfied with the explanation of your meaning concerning the word Fallacy though I think to have had reason for saying what I did but by your favour I do not conceive that you have answered the strength of my Argument for when you and I differ upon the interpretation of Scripture and I appeal to the practice of the Primitive Church and the universal consent of the Fathers to be Judge between us Methinks you should either find a fitter or submit to what I offer neither of which to My understanding you have yet done nor have you shewn how waving those Judges I appeal unto the mischief of the interpretation by private Spirits can be prevented Indeed if I cannot prove by Antiquity that Ordination and Jurisdiction belong to Bishops thereby clearly distinguishing them from other Presbyters I shall then begin to misdoubt many of my former Foundations as for Bishop Davenant he is none of those to whom I have appealed or will submit unto But for the exception you take to Fathers I take it to be a begging of the Question as likewise those great discoveries of secrets not known to former Ages I shall call new-invented fancies until particularly you shall prove the contrary and for your Roman Authors it is no great wonder for them to seek shifts whereby to maintain Novelties as well as the Puritans As for Church-ambition it doth not at all terminate in seeking to be Pope for I take it to be no point of humility to indeavour to be independent of Kings it being possible that Papacy in a multitude may be as dangerous as in one 6. As I am no Judge over the Reformed Churches so neither do I censure them for many things may be avowable upon necessity which otherwayes are unlawful but know once for all that I esteem nothing the better because it is done by such a particular Church though it were by the Church of England which I avow most to reverence but I esteem that Church most which comes nearest to the purity of the Primitive Doctrine and Discipline as I believe this doth Now concerning Ordination I bad you prove that Presbyters without a Bishop might lawfully ordain which yet I conceive you have not done for 2 Tim. 1. 6. it is evident that Saint Paul was at Timothie's ordination and albeit that all the Seventy had their power immediately from Christ yet it is as evident that our Saviour made a clear distinction between the twelve Apostles and the rest of the Disciples which is set down by three of the Evangelists whereof Saint Mark calls it an Ordination Mark 3. 15. and Saint Luke sayes And of them he chose Twelve c. Luk. 6. 13. only Saint Matthew doth but barely enumerate them by their name of distinction Mat. 10. 1. I suppose out of modesty himself being one and the other two being none are more particular For the Administration of Baptism giving but not granting what you say it makes more for Me than you but I will not engage upon new Questions not necessary for My purpose 7. For my Oath you do well not to enter upon those Questions you mention and you had done as well to have omitted your instance but out of discretion I desire you to collect your Answer out of the last Section and for your Argument though the intention of my Oath be for the good of the Church collective therefore can I be dispensed withal by others than the representative Body certainly no more than the People can dispense with Me for any Oaths I took in their favours without the two Houses of Parliament As for future Reformations I will only tell you that incommodum non solvit Argumentum 8. For the King my Father's opinion if it were not to spend time as I believe needlesly I could prove by living and written testimonies all and more than I have said of Him for His perswasion in these points which I now maintain and for your defensive War as I do acknowledge it a great sin for any King to oppress the Church so I hold it absolutely unlawful for Subjects upon any pretence whatsoever to make War though defensive against their lawful Sovereign against which no less proofs will make Me yield but God's Word and let Me tell you that upon such points
as these instances as well as comparisons are odious 9. Lastly You mistake the Quaere in My first Paper to which this pretends to answer for my Question was not concerning force of Arguments for I never doubted the lawfulness of it but force â—f Arms to which I conceive it says little or nothing unless after My example you â—â—â—er Me to the former Section that which it doth is merely the asking of the question after a fine discourse of the several ways of perswading rather than forcing of Conscience I close up this Paper desiring you to take notice that there is none of these Sections but I could have inlarged to many more lines some to whole pages yet I chose to be thus brief knowing you will understand more by a word than others by a long discourse trusting likewise to your ingenuity that Reason epitomized will weigh as much with you as if it were at large June 22. 1646. C. R. VI. Mr Alexander Henderson's Third Paper For His MAJESTY Concerning the Authority of the Fathers and Practice of the Church July 2. 1646. HAving in my former Papers pressed the steps of Your Majesty's Propositions and finding by Your Majesty's last Paper Controversies to be multiplied I believe beyond Your Majesty's intentions in the beginning as concerning The Reforming Power The Reformation of the Church of England The difference betwixt a Bishop and a Presbyter The warrants of Presbyterian Government The Authority of Interpreting Scripture The taking and keeping of Publick Oaths The forcing of Conscience and many other inferiour and subordinate Questions which are Branches of those main Controversies all which in a satisfactory manner to determine in few words I leave to more presuming Spirits who either see no knots of Difficulties or can find a way rather to cut them asunder than to unloose them yet will I not use any Tergiversation nor do I decline to offer my humble Opinion with the Reasons thereof in their own time concerning each of them which in obedience to Your Majesty's Command I have begun to do already Only Sir by Your Majesty's favourable permission for the greater expedition and that the present velitations may be brought to some Issue I am bold to intreat that the Method may be a little altered and I may have leave now to begin at a Principle and that which should have been inter Praecognita I mean the Rule by which we are to proceed and to determine the present Controversy of Church-Policy without which we will be led into a labyrinth and want a thred to wind us out again In Your Majesty's First Paper the universal Custom of the Primitive Church is conceived to be the Rule in the Second Paper Section 5. the Practice of the Primitive Church and the universal Consent of the Fathers is made a convincing Argument when the Interpretation of Scripture is doubtful in your Third Paper Sect. 5. the Practice of the Primitive Church and the universal Consent of Fathers is made Judge And I know that nothing is more ordinary in this Question than to alledge Antiquity perpetual Succession universal Consent of the Fathers and the universal Practice of the Primitive Church according to the Rule of Augustine Quod universa tenet Ecclesia nec à Concilio institutum sed semper retentum est non nisi authoritate Apostolica traditum rectissimè creditur There is in this Argument at the first view so much appearance of Reason that it may much work upon a modest mind yet being well examined and rightly weighed it will be found to be of no great weight for beside that the Minor will never be made good in the behalf of a Diocesan Bishop having sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction there being a multitude of Fathers who maintain that Bishop and Presbyter are of one and the same Order I shall humbly offer some few Considerations about the Major because it hath been an Inlet to many dangerous Errours and hath proved a mighty hinderance and obstruction to Reformation of Religion 1. I desire it may be considered that whiles some make two Rules for defining Controversies the Word of God and Antiquity which they will have to be received with equal veneration or as the Papists call them Canonical Authority and Catholical Tradition and others make Scripture to be the only Rule and Antiquity the authentick Interpreter the latter of the two seems to me to be the greater Errour because the first setteth up a parallel in the same degree with Scripture but this would create a Superiour in a higher degree above Scripture For the interpretation of the Fathers shall be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and accounted the very Cause and Reason for which we conceive and believe such a place of Scripture to have such a sense and thus men shall have dominion over our Faith against 2 Cor. 1. 24. Our faith shall stand in the wisdom of man and not in the power of God 1 Cor. 2. 5. and Scripture shall be of private interpretation For the Prophecy came not of old by the will of man 2 Pet. 1. 20 22. Nisi homini Deus placuerit Deus non erit Homo jam Deo propitius esse debebit saith Tertullian 2. That Scripture cannot be Authentically interpreted but by Scripture is manifest from Scripture The Levites gave the sense of the Law by no other means but by Scripture it self Neh. 8. 8. Our Saviour for example to us gave the true sense of Scripture against the depravations of Satan by comparing Scripture with Scripture and not by alledging any Testimonies out of the Rabbins Matt. 4. And the Apostles in their Epistles used no other help but the diligent comparing of Prophetical writings like as the Apostle Peter will have us to compare the clearer light of the Apostles with the more obscure light of the Prophets 2 Pet. 1. 19. And when we betake our selves to the Fathers we have need to take heed that with the Papists we accuse not the Scriptures of Obscurity or Imperfection 3. The Fathers themselves as they are cited by Protestant Writers hold this Conclusion That Scripture is not to be interpreted but by Scripture it self To this purpose amongst many other Testimonies they bring the saying of Tertullian Surge Veritas ipsa Scripturas tuas interpretare quam Consuetudo non novit nam si nosset non esset if it knew Scripture it would be ashamed of it self and cease to be any more 4. That some Errours have been received and continued for a long time in the Church The Errour of Free-will beginning at Justin Martyr continued till the time of Reformation although it was rejected by Augustine as the Divine Right of Episcopacy was opposed by others The Errour about the Vision of God That the Souls of the Saints departed see not the face of God till the Judgment of the Great Day was held by universal Consent The same may be said of the Errour of the Millenaries and which more nearly
no question but there are always some flattering fools that can commend nothing but with hyperbolick expressions and you know that supposito quolibet sequitur quidlibet besides do you think that albeit some ignorant Fellows should attribute more power to Presbyters than is really due unto them that thereby their Just reverence and Authority is diminished So I see no reason why I may not safely maintain that the Interpretation of Fathers is a most excellent strengthning to My Opinion though others should attribute the Cause and Reason of their Faith unto it 2. As there is no question but that Scripture is far the best Interpreter of it self so I see nothing in this negatively proved to exclude any other notwithstanding your positive affirmation 3. Nor in the next for I hope you will not be the first to condemn your self Me and innumerable others who yet unblameably have not tied themselves to this Rule 4. If this you only intend to prove that Errours were always breeding in the Church I shall not deny it yet that makes little as I conceive to your purpose But if your meaning be to accuse the Universal practice of the Church with Errour I must say it is a very bold undertaking and if you cannot justifie your self by clear places in Scripture much to be blamed wherein you must not alledge that to be universally received which was not as I dare say that the Controversie about Free-will was never yet decided by Oecumenical or General Council nor must you presume to call that an Errour which really the Catholick Church maintained as in Rites of Baptism Forms of Prayer Observation of Feasts Fasts c. except you can prove it so by the Word of God and it is not enough to say that such a thing was not warranted by the Apostles but you must prove by their Doctrine that such a thing was unlawful or else the Practice of the Church is warrant enough for Me to follow and obey that Custom whatsoever it be and think it good and I shall believe that the Apostles Creed was made by them such Reverence I bear to the Churches Tradition untill other Authors be certainly found out 5. I was taught that de posse ad esse was no good Argument and indeed to Me it is incredible that any custom of the Catholick Church was erroneous which was not contradicted by Orthodox learned Men in the times of their first Practice as is easily perceived that all those Defections were some of them may be justly called Rebellions which you mention 6. I deny it is impossible though I confess it difficult to come to the knowledge of the Universal Consent and Practice of the Primitive Church therefore I confess a man ought to be careful how to believe things of this nature wherefore I conceive this to be only an Argument for Caution My conclusion is that albeit I never esteemed any Authority equal to the Scriptures yet I do think the Unanimous Consent of the Fathers and the Universal Practice of the Primitive Church to be the best and most Authentical Interpreters of God's Word and consequently the fittest Judges between Me and you when we differ until you shall find Me better For example I think you for the present the best Preacher in Newcastle yet I believe you may err and possibly a better Preacher may come but till then I must retain my Opinion Newcastle July 16. 1646. C. R. His MAJESTY's Quaere concerning Easter propounded to the Parliaments Commissioners at Holdenby April 23. 1647. I desire to be resolved of this Question Why the new Reformers discharge the keeping of Easter The Reason for this Quaere is I Conceive the Celebration of this Feast was instituted by the same Authority which changed the Jewish Sabbath into the Lord's Day or Sunday for it will not be found in Scripture where Saturday is discharged to be kept or turned into the Sunday wherefore it must be the Churches Authority that changed the one and instituted the other Therefore My Opinion is that those who will not keep this Feast may as well return to the observation of Saturday and refuse the weekly Sunday When any body can shew Me that herein I am in an errour I shall not be ashamed to confess and amend it till when you know my mind C. R. His MAJESTY's First Paper concerning Episcopacy At the Treaty at NEWPORT October 2. 1648. CHARLES R. I Conceive that Episcopal Government is most consonant to the Word of God and of an Apostolical institution as it appears by the Scripture to have been practised by the Apostles themselves and by them committed and derived to particular persons as their Substitutes or Successors therein as for ordaining Presbyters and Deacons giving Rules concerning Christian Discipline and exercising Censures over Presbyters and others and hath ever since to these last times been exercised by Bishops in all the Churches of Christ and therefore I cannot in Conscience consent to abolish the said Government Notwithstanding this my perswasion I shall be glad to be informed if our Saviour and the Apostles did so leave the Church at liberty as they might totally alter or change the Church-Government at their pleasure Which if you can make appear to Me then I will confess that one of my great Scruples is clean taken away And then there only remains That being by my Coronation-Oath obliged to maintain Episcopal Government as I found it setled to my hands Whether I may consent to the abolishing thereof until the same shall be evidenced to Me to be contrary to the Word of God Newport October 2. 1648. PRAYERS Used by His MAJESTY in the time of His Troubles and Restraint I. A Prayer used by His MAJESTY at His entrance in state into the Cathedral Church of Excester after the defeat of the Earl of Essex in Cornwal O Most glorious Lord God Father Son and Holy Ghost I here humbly adore thy most Sacred Majesty and I bless and magnifie thy Name for that Thou hast been pleased so often and so strangely to deliver Me from the strivings of my People Father forgive them who have thus risen up against Me and do Thou yet turn their hearts both unto Thee and to Me that I being firmly established in the Throne Thou hast placed Me in I may defend Thy Church committed to My care and keep all this Thine and My People in Truth and Peace through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen II. A Prayer drawn by His MAJESTY's special direction and dictates for a Blessing on the Treaty at Uxbridge O Most merciful Father Lord God of Peace and Truth we a People sorely afflicted by the scourge of an unnatural War do here earnestly beseech Thee to command a Blessing from Heaven upon this present Treaty begun for the establishment of an happy Peace Soften the most obdurate hearts with a true Christian desire of saving those mens blood for whom Christ himself
and quietness and shall I now neither enjoy them nor Peace Have not My Subjects formerly obeyed Me and shall I now be obedient to My Subjects Have I not been condemned for Evil Counsellors and shall I now be condemned for having no Counsel but God These are unutterable Miseries that the more I endeavour for Peace the less My endeavours are respected and how shall I know hereafter what to grant when your selves know not what to ask I refer it to your consciences whether I have not satisfied your desires in every particular since this Treaty if you find I have not then let Me bear the burthen of the fault but if I have given you ample satisfaction as I am sure I have then you are bound to vindicate Me from the fury of those whose thoughts are filled with blood though they pretend zeal yet they are but Wolves in Sheeps cloathing I must further declare that I conceive there is nothing can more obstruct the long-hoped-for peace of this Nation than the illegall proceedings of them that presume from Servants to become Masters and labour to bring in Democracy and to abolish Monarchy Needs must the total alteration of Fundamentals be not only destructlve to others but in conclusion to themselves for they that endeavour to rule by the Sword shall at last fall by it for Faction is the Mother of Ruine and it is the humour of those that are of this weather-cock-like disposition to love nothing but mutabilities neither will that please them but only pro tempore for too much variety doth but confound the senses and makes them still hate one folly and fall in love with another Time is the best cure for Faction for it will at length like a spreading leprosie infect the whole body of the Kingdom and make it so odious that at last they will hate themselves for love of that and like the Fish for love of the bait be catch'd with the hook I once more declare to all My loving Subjects and God knows whether or no this may be My last That I have earnestly laboured for Peace and that My thoughts were sincere and absolute without any sinister ends and there was nothing left undone by Me that My Conscience would permit me to do And I call God to witness that I do firmly conceive that the interposition of the Army that cloud of Malice hath altogether eclips'd the glory of that Peace which began again to shine in this Land And let the world judge whether it be expedient for an Army to contradict the Votes of a Kingdom endeavouring by pretending for Laws and Liberties to subvert both Such actions as these must produce strange consequences and set open the flood-gates of Ruin to overflow this Kingdom in a moment Had this Treaty been only Mine own seeking then they might have had fairer pretences to have stopt the course of it but I being importun'd by My two Houses and they by most part of the Kingdom could not but with a great deal of alacrity concurr with them in their desires for the performance of so commodious a work and I hope by this time that the hearts and eyes of My People are opened so much that they plainly discover who are the Underminers of this Treaty For Mine own part I here protest before the face of Heaven that Mine own Afflictions though they need no addition afflict Me not so much as My Peoples Sufferings for I know what to trust to already and they know not God comfort both them and Me and proportion our Patience to our Sufferings And when the Malice of Mine Enemies is spun out to the smallest thred let them know that I will by the grace of God be as contented to suffer as they are active to advance My Sufferings and Mine own Soul tells Me that the time will come when the very clouds shall drop down vengeance upon the heads of those that barricado themselves against the proceedings of of Peace for if God hath proclaimed a blessing to the Peace-makers needs must the Peace-breakers draw down curses upon their heads I thank My God I have armed My self against their Fury and now let the arrows of their Envy fly at Me I have a breast to receive them and a heart possest with Patience to sustain them for God is My Rock and My shield therefore I will not fear what man can do unto Me. I will expect the worst and if any thing happen beyond My expectation I will give God the glory for vain is the help of man THE END AN APPENDIX CONTAINING THE PAPERS WHICH PASSED BETWIXT HIS MAJESTY And the Divines which Attended the Commissioners of the TWO HOUSES at the TREATY at NEWPORT CONCERNING CHURCH-GOVERNMENT In this APPENDIX are contained I. His MAJESTIES Reason why He cannot in Conscience consent to abolish the Episcopal Government October 2. 1648. p. 612. II. The Answer of the Divines to His MAJESTIES Reason Octob. 3. ibid. III. His MAJESTIES Reply to their Paper Octob 6. p. 616. IV. The Rejoinder of the Divines to His MAJESTIES Reply Octob. 17. p. 621. V. His MAJESTIES Final Answer concerning Episcopacy Nov. 1. 1648. p. 634. I. His MAJESTIES Reason why He cannot in Conscience consent to abolish the Episcopal Government CHARLES R. I Conceive that Episcopal Government is most consonant to the Word of God and of Apostolical Institution as it appears by the Scripture to have been practised by the Apostles themselves and by them committed and derived to particular Persons as their Substitutes or Successors therein as for Ordaining Presbyters and Deacons giving Rules for Christian Discipline and exercising Censures over Presbyters and others and hath ever since till these last times been exercised by Bishops in all the Churches of Christ And therefore I cannot in Conscience consent to abolish the said Government Notwithstanding this My perswasion I shall be glad to be informed if our Saviour and the Apostles did so leave the Church at liberty as they might totally alter or change the Church-Government at their pleasure Which if you can make appear to Me then I will confess that one of My great Scruples is clean taken away And then there only remains That being by My Coronation-Oath obliged to maintain Episcopal Government as I found it setled to My hands Whether I may consent to the abolishing thereof until the same shall be evidenced to Me to be contrary to the Word of God Newport 2. Oct. 1648. II. An Humble Answer returned to Your Majesties Paper delivered to us Octob. 2. MDCXLVIII May it please Your Majesty WE do fully agree without hesitation That these Scriptures cited in the margin of Your Paper Acts xiv 23. Acts vi 6. 1 Cor. xvi 1. 1 Cor. xiv 1 Cor. v. 3. iii John 9 10. do prove that the Apostles did ordain Presbyters and Deacons give Rules concerning Christian Discipline and had power of exercising Censures over Presbyters and others
Bishop Jewel that Ambrose Chrysostome Jerome Augustine and many more holy Fathers together with the Apostle Paul agree that by the Word of God there is no difference between a Bishop and a Presbyter and that Medina in the Council of Trent affirms not only the same Fathers but also another Jerome Theodoret Primasius Sedulius and Theophylact to be of the same judgment and that with them agree Oecumenius Anselme Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and another Anselme Gregory and Gratian and after them many others that it was inrolled in the Canon Law for sound and Catholick Doctrine and publickly taught by Learned men And adds That all who have laboured in the Reformation of the Church for these 500 years have taught that all Pastors be they intituled Bishops or Priests have equal authority and power by God's word The same way goes Lombard Master of the Sentences and Father of the School-men who speaking of Presbyters and Deacons saith The Primitive Church had those Orders only and that we have the Apostles precept for them alone With him agree many of the most eminent in that kind and generally all the Canonists To these we may add Sixtus Senensis who testifies for himself and many others and Cassander who was called by one of the German Emperors as one of singular ability and integrity to inform him and resolve his Conscience in questions of that nature who said It is agreed among all that in the Apostles times there was no difference between a Bishop and a Presbyter For a conclusion we add that the Doctrine we have herein propounded to Your Majesty concerning the Identity of the Order of Bishops and Presbyters is no other than the Doctrine published by King Henry the 8. 1543. for all his Subjects to receive seen and allowed by the Lords both Spiritual and Temporal with the neather House of Parliament Of these two Orders only so saith the Book that is to say Priests and Deacons Scripture maketh express mention and how they were conferred of the Apostles by Prayer and Imposition of hands By all which it seems evident that the Order of Episcopacy as distinct from Presbytery is but an Ecclesiastical Institution and therefore not unalterable Lastly we answer That Episcopal Government which at first obtained in the Church did really and substantially differ from the Episcopal Goverment which the Honourable Houses of Parliament desire the abolition of The Bishop of those times was one presiding and joining with the Presbytery of his Church ruling with them and not without them either created and made by the Presbyters chusing out one among themselves as in Rome and Alexandria or chosen by the Church and confirmed by three or more of his Neighbours of like dignity within the same precinct lesser Towns and Villages had and might have have Bishops in them as well as populous and eminent Cities until the Council of Sardis decreed That Villages and small Cities should have no Bishops lest the name and authority of a Bishop might thereby come into contempt But of one claiming as his due and right to himself alone as a superior order or degree all power about Ordination of Presbyters and Deacons and all jurisdiction either to exercise himself or delegate to whom he will of the Laity or Clergy as they distinguish according to the Judgment and Practice of those in our times we read not till in the latter and corrupter Ages of the Church By all which it appears that the present Hierarchy the abolition whereof is desired by the Honourable Houses may accordingly be abolished and yet possibly the Bishops of those Primitive times be They are so far differing one from another In answer to that part of Your Majesties Paper wherein You require whether our Saviour and his Apostles did so leave the Church at liberty as they might totally alter or change the Church-Government at their pleasure we humbly conceive that there are Substantials belonging to Church-Government such as are appointed by Christ and his Apostles which are not in the Churches liberty to alter at pleasure But as for Arch-Bishops c. we hope it will appear unto Your Majesties Conscience that they are none of the Church-Governors appointed by our Saviour and his Apostles And we beseech Your Majesty to look rather to the Original of them than Succession Octob. 3. 1648. III. His MAJESTIES Answer to the Paper delivered to Him by the Divines attending the Parliament's Commissioners concerning Church-Government C. R. HIS Majesty upon perusal of your Answer to His Paper of the second of October 1648. findeth that you acknowledg the several Scriptures cited in the Margin to prove the things for which they are cited viz. That the Apostles in their own persons that Timothy and Titus by Authority derived from them and the Angels of the Churches had power of Church-Government and did or might actually exercise the same in all the three several branches in His Paper specified And so in effect you grant all that is desired For the Bishops challenge no more or other power to belong unto them in respect of their Episcopal Office as it is distinct from that of Presbyters than what properly falleth under one of these three Ordination giving Rules and Censures But when you presently after deny the persons that exercised the power aforesaid to have been Bishops or to have exercised Episcopal Government in that sense as Bishops are distinct from Presbyters you do in effect deny the very same thing you had before granted For Episcopal Government in that sense being nothing else but the Government of the Churches within a certain Precinct commonly called a Diocese committed to one single person with sufficient authority over the Presbyters and people of those Churches for that end since the substance of the thing it self in all the three forementioned particulars is found in the Scriptures unless you will strive about names and words which tendeth to no profit but to the puzling and subverting those which seek after truth you must also acknowledg that Episcopal Government in the sense aforesaid may be sufficiently proved from the Scriptures In that which you say next and for proof thereof insist upon three several Texts His Majesty conceiveth as to the present business that the most that can be proved from all or any of those places is this That the word Bishop is there used to signifie Presbyter and that consequently the Office and Work mentioned in those places as the Office and Work of a Bishop are the Office and Work of a Presbyter which is confest on all sides although His Majesty is not sure that the proof will reach so far in each of those places But from thence to infer an absolute Identity of the Functions of a Bishop and a Presbyter is a fallacy which his Majesty observeth to run in a manner quite along your whole Answer but it appears from the Scriptures by what you have granted that single persons as Timothy and Titus
Doctor Reynolds against Hart and by other Writers 4. You affirm but upon very weak proofs that they were from Ephesus and Crete removed to other places Some that have exactly out of Scripture compared the times and orders of the several journeys and stations of Paul and Timothy have demonstrated the contrary concerning this particular 5. Whereas you say it is manifest from the 2. Tim. iv 9. and Tit. iii. 12. that they were called away from these places it doth no more conclude that they were not Bishops there or that they might as well be called Bishops of other Churches than it may be concluded from the attendance of the Divines at Westminster that they are no longer Parsons or Vicars of their several Parishes Lastly for the Postscripts of these Epistles though His Majesty lay no great weight upon them yet He holdeth them to be of great antiquity and therefore such as in question of fact where there appears no strong evidence to weaken their belief ought not to be lightly rejected Neither doth His Majesty lay any weight at all upon the Allegory or Mystery of the denomination in the next point concerning the Angels of the Churches as you mistake in your Answer thereunto wherein His Majesty finds as little satisfaction as in the last point before The strength of His Majesties instance lay in this That in the Judgement of all the Ancient and the best Modern Modern Writers and by many probabilities in the Text it self the Angels of the Seven Churches were personoe Singulares and such as had a Prelacy as well over Pastors as People within their Churches and that is in a word Bishops And you bring nothing of moment in your Answer to infirm this You say truly indeed That those Epistles were written in Epistolary style and so as Letters to collective or representative Bodies use to be directed to one but intended to the Body Which when you have proved you are so far from weakning that you rather strengthen the Argument to prove those Angels to have been single persons as when His Majesty sendeth a Message to His two Houses and directs it to the Speaker of the House of Peers His intending it to the whole House doth not hinder but that the Speaker to whom it is directed is one single person still Yet His Majesty cannot but observe in this as in some parts of your Answer how willing you are versari in generalibus and how unwillingly to speak out and to declare plainly and directly what your opinion is concerning those Angels who they were whether they were as the great Antagonist of Episcopacy Salmasius very peremptorily sit ergo hoc fixum c. affirmeth the whole Churches or so many individual Pastors of the gathered Churches in those Cities or the whole College of Presbyters in the respective Churches or the singular and individual Presidents of these Colleges for into so many several Opinions are those few divided among themselves who have divided themselves from the common and received judgement of the Christian Church In the following discourse you deny that the Apostles were to have any Successors in their Office and affirm that there were to be onely two Orders of ordinary and standing Officers in the Church wiz Presbyters and Deacons What His Majesty conceiveth concerning the Successors of the Apostles is in part already declared viz. That they have no Successors in eundem gradum in respect of those things that were extraordinary in them as namely the measure of their Gifts the extent of their Charge the infallibility of their Doctrine and which is sundry times mentioned as a special Character of an Apostle properly so called the having seen Christ in the flesh But in those things that were not extraordinary and such those things are to be judged which are necessary for the service of the Church in all times as the Office of Teaching and the power of Governing are they were to have and had Successors and therefore the Learned and Godly Fathers and Councils of old times did usually style Bishops the Successors of the Apostles without ever scrupling thereat And as to the standing Offices of the Church although in the places by you cited Phil. i. 1. i Tim. iii. 8. there be no mention of Bishops as distinct from Presbyters but of the two Orders only of Bishops or Presbyters and Deacons yet it is not thereby proved that there is no other standing Office in the Church besides For there appear two other manifest reasons why that of Bishops might not be so proper to be mentioned in those places the one because in the Churches which the Apostles themselves planted they placed Presbyters under them for the Office of Teaching but took upon themselves the care and reserved in their own hands the power of Governing in those Churches for a longer or shorter time as they saw it expedient for the propagating of the Gospel before they set Bishops over them and so it may be probable that there was as yet no Bishop set over the Church of Philippi when Saint Paul writ his Epistle to them The other because in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus the persons to whom he wrote being themselves Bishops there was no need to write any thing concerning the choice or qualification of any other sort of Officers than such as belonged to their ordination or inspection which were Presbyters and Deacons only and not Bishops Concerning the Ages succeeding the Apostles 1. His Majesty believeth that altho Faith as it is an assent unto Truth supernatural or of Divine revelation reacheth no further than the Scriptures yet in matters of fact humane Testimonies may beget a Faith though humane yet certain and infallible as by the credit of Histories we have an infallible Faith that Aristotle was a Greek Philosopher and Cicero a Roman Orator 2. The darkness of those times in respect of the History of the Church is a very strong Argument for Episcopacy which notwithstanding the darkness of the times hath found so full and clear a proof by the unquestioned Catalogues extant in ancient Writers of the Bishops of sundry famous Cities as Jerusalem Antioch Alexandria Rome Ephesus c. in a continued succession from the Apostles as scarce any other matter of fact hath found the like 3. In Clement's Testimony cited by you His Majesty conceiveth you make use of your old fallacy from the promiscuous use of the words to infer the indistinction of the things for who can doubt of Clement's Opinion concerning the distinct Offices of Bishops and Presbyters who either readeth his whole Epistle or considereth that he himself was a Bishop in that sense even by the confession of Videlius himself a man never yet suspected to favour Bishops who saith that after the death of Linus and Cletus Clemens solus Episcopi nomen retinuit quia jam invaluerat distinctio Episcopi Presbyteri And for Ignatius Epistles though some of late out of their partial
call upon us to be particular though we cannot name the Angels nor are satisfied in our judgment that those whom some do undertake to name were intended by the name of Angels in those Epistles yet we say First that these Epistles were sent unto the Churches and that under the expression of this thou dost or this thou hast and the like the Churches are respectively intended for the Sins reproved the Repentance commanded the Punishments threatned ate to be referred to the Churches and not to the singular Angels only and yet we do not think that Salmasius did intend nor do we that in formal denomination the Angels and Candlesticks were the same Secondly The Angels of these Churches or Rulers were a Collective body which we endeavoured to prove by such probabilities as Your Majesty takes no notice of namely the instance of the Church of Ephesus where there were many Bishops to whom the charge of that Church was by St. Paul at his final departure from them committed as also by that expression Rev. xi 24. To you and to the rest in Thyatira Which distinction makes it very probable that the Angel is explained under that plurality to you The like to which many expressions may be found in these Epistles which to interpret according to the consentient Evidence of other Scriptures of the New Testament is not Safe only but Solid and Evidential Thirdly These Writings are directed as Epistolary Letters to Collective Bodies usually are that is to One but intended to the Body which Your Majesty illustrateth by Your sending a Message to Your Two Houses and directing it to the Speaker of the House of Peers which as it doth not hinder we confess but that the Speaker is one single Person so it doth not prove at all that the Speaker is always the same person or if he were that therefore because Your Message is directed to him he is the Governour or Ruler of the two Houses in the least And so Your Majesty hath given clear instance that tho these Letters be directed to the Angels yet that notwithstanding they might neither be Bishops nor yet perpetual Moderators For the several opinions specified in Your Majesties Paper three of them by easy and fair accommodation as we declared before are soon reduced and united amongst themselves and may be holden without recess from the received Judgment of the Christian Church by such as are far from meriting that Aspersion which is cast upon the Reformed Divines by Popish Writers that they have divided themselves from the Common and received Judgment of the Christian Church which Imputation we hope was not in Your Majesties intention to lay upon us until it be made clear that it is the common and received Judgment of the Christian Church that now is or of that in former Ages that the Angels of the Churches were Bishops having Prelacy as well over Pastors as People within their Churches In the following Discourse we did deny that the Apostles were to have any Successors in their Office and affirmed only Two Orders of ordinary and standing Officers in the Church viz. Presbyters and Deacons Concerning the former of which Your Majesty refers to what you had in part already declared That in those things which were extraordinary in the Apostles as namely the Measure of their Gifts c. They had no Successors in eundem gradum but in those things which were not extraordinary as the Office of Teaching and Power of Governing which are necessary for the Service of the Church in all times they were to have and had Successors Where Your Majesty delivers a Doctrine new to us namely that the Apostles had Successors into their Offices not into their Abilities For besides that Succession is not properly into Abilities but into Office we cannot say that one succeeds another in his Learning or Wit or Parts but into his Room and Function we conceive that the Office Apostolical was extraordinary in whole because their Mission and Commission was so and the service or work of Teaching and Governing being to continue in all times doth not render their Office Ordinary as the Office of Moses was not rendered Ordinary because many works of Government exercised by him were re-committed to the standing Elders of Israel And if they have Successors it must be either into their whole Office or into some parts Their Successors into the whole however differing from them in measure of Gifts and peculiar Qualifications must be called Apostles the same Office gives the same Denomination and then we shall confess that Bishops if they be their Successors in Office are of Divine Institution because the Apostolical Office was so If their Successors come into part of their Office only the Presbyters may as well be called their Successors as the Bishops and so indeed they are called by some of the ancient Fathers Irenoeus Origen Hierome and others Whereas in truth the Apostles have not properly Successors into Office but the ordinary Power of Teaching and Governing which is setled in the Church for continuance is instituted and settled in the hands of ordinary Officers by a New Warrant and Commission according to the rules of Ordination and Calling in the Word which the Bishop hath not yet produced for himself and without which he cannot challenge it upon the general allusive Speeches used by the Fathers without scruple And whereas Your Majesty numbers the extent of their work amongst those things which were extraordinary in the Apostles we could wish that You had declared whether it belong to their Mission or Vnction for we humbly conceive that their Authoritative Power to do their Work in all places of the World did properly belong to their Mission and consequently that their Office as well as their Abilities was extraordinary and so by Your Majesties own Concession not to be succeeded into by the Bishops As to the Orders of standing Officers of the Church Your Majesty doth reply That although in the places cited Phil. i. 1. i Tim. iii. 8. there be no mention but of the two Orders only of Bishops or Presbyters and Deacons yet it is not thereby proved that there is no other standing Office in the Church besides Which we humbly conceive is justly proved not only because there are no other named but because there is no rule of Ordaining any third no Warrant or way of Mission and so Argument is as good as can be made a non causa ad non effectum for we do not yet apprehend that the Bishops pretending to the Apostolick Office do also pretend to the same manner of Mission nor do we know that those very many Divines that have asserted two Orders only have concluded it from any other grounds than the Scriptures cited There appear as your Majesty saith two other manifest Reasons why the Office of Bishops might not be so proper to be mentioned in those places And we humbly conceive there is a third more manifest than those two
incorporated into the Commonwealth whereupon there must of necessity follow a complication of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Powers the Jurisdiction of Bishops in the outward exercise of it was subordinate unto and limitable by the supreme Civil power and hath been and is at this day so acknowledged by the Bishops of this Realm Thirdly you seem to affirm in a Parenthesis as if nothing were confessed to have been extraordinary in the Apostles but their Gifts and Enablements only whereas His Majesty in that Paper hath in express words named as Extraordinaries also the Extent of their Charge and the Infallibility of their Doctrine without any meaning to exclude those not named as their immediate Calling and if there be any other of like reason Fourthly for the Claim to a jus Divinum His Majesty was willing to decline both the Term as being by reason of the different acception of it subject to misconstruction and the dispute whether by Christ or his Apostles Nevertheless altho His Majesty sees no cause to dislike their opinion who derive the Episcopal power originally from Christ himself without whose warrant the Apostles would not either have exercised it themselves or derived it to others Yet for that the practice in them is so clear and evident and the warrant from him exprest but in general Terms As my Father sent me so send I you and the like He chose rather as others have done to fix the claim of the power upon the practice as the more evidential way than upon the warrant which by reason of the generality of expression would bear more dispute As to the Definition of Episcopacy First whereas you except against it for that it is competent to Archiepiscopal and Patriarchal Government as well as Episcopal His Majesty thinketh you might have excepted more justly against it if it had been otherwise Secondly His Majesty believeth that even in the persons by you named Timothy Titus and the Angels the definition in all the parts of it is to be found viz. that they were all single persons that they had their several peculiar Charges and that within their several precincts they had authority over Presbyters as well as others Neither thirdly doth His Majesty think it needful that any word be added to the Genus in the definition or that the Scripture should any where put all the parts of the definition together It would be a hard matter to give such a definition of an Apostle or a Prophet or an Evangelist or a Presbyter or a Deacon or indeed almost of any thing as that the parts thereof should be found in any place of Scripture put altogether Fourthly His Majesty consenteth with you that the point in issue is not the Name or Work meerly but the Office and that it were a Fallacy to argue a particular Office from a General or Common work But judgeth withal that it can be no Fallacy to argue a Particular Office from such a work as is peculiar to that Office and is as it were the formalis ratio thereof and therefore no Fallacy from a work done by a single person which a single Presbyter hath no right to do to infer an Office in that person distinct from the Office of a Presbyter As to the Scriptures cited by you viz. Titus 1. Acts xx 11 Peter v. First when you say you take His Majesties Concession That in those times of the Church and places of Scripture there was no distinct Office of Bishops and Presbyters if you take it so truly you take it gratis His Majesty never gave it you and you mistake it too more ways than one for to speak properly His Majesty made no Concession at all It was rather a Preterition in order to the present business and to avoid unnecessary disputes which ought not to be interepreted as an acknowledgement of the Truth of your Expositions of those places For his own express words are Although His Majesty be not sure that the Proof will reach so far in each of those Places Which words plainly evidence that which you call His Majesties Concession to be indeed no Concession but to have been meant according to that form of Speech very usual in disputations Dato non Concesso But in that Concession such as it is His Majesty is not yet able to imagine what you could find whereon to ground those words That in those times of the Church there was no distinct c. there being not any thing in the whole passage that carrieth the least sound that way or that hath relation to any particular times of the Church Neither is the Concession such as you take it as it relateth to those places of Scripture What His Majesty said was confessed on all sides which are the words you take for a Concession was but this That supposing but not granting the word Bishop to be used in all those places to signifie a Presbyter the Office and Work in those places mentioned as the Office and Work of a Bishop are upon that supposal the Office and Work of a Presbyter which is so manifest a Truth that no man without admitting Contradictions can say the contrary But how wide or short that is from what you make to be His Majesties Concession your selves by comparing His words with yours may easily judge But your selves a little after make a Concession which His Majesty warned by your example how soon anothers meaning may be mistaken when his words are altered is willing to take in the same words you give it viz. When you say and you bring reasons also to prove it That it seemeth manifest that Ordination and Censures are not to be exercised by a single Presbyter Secondly you repeat your Arguments formerly drawn from those places and press the same from the force of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and from the Circumstances of the Text and otherwise adding withal that His Majesty hath waved the notice or answer of something by you alledged therein Hereunto His Majesty saith that He waved not any thing in your former Paper for any great difficulty He conceived of answering it but being desirous to contract His Answer and knowing to what frailties Arguments drawn from Names and Words and Conjectural Expositions of Scripture are subject He passed by such things as He deemed to be of least Consideration in order to the end of the whole Debate to wit the satisfaction of His Judgement and Conscience in the main business Otherwise His Majesty could have then told you That there are who by the like Conjectures grounded as seemeth to them upon some Probabilities in the Text interpret those places in the Acts and in St Peter of Bishops properly so called and in the restrained Ecclesiastical sense rather than of ordinary Presbyters That supposing them both meant of Ordinary Presbyters the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifie to feed and oversee might not unfitly
be applied to them as inferior Pastors in relation to their Flocks under their charge and oversight the Flock being in both the places expresly mentioned which hindreth not but that the same words may in a more particular manner be appropriated to Bishops in respect of that Authority and oversight they have even over Presbyters themselves also That still granting your own interpretation of the word Bishop in that place to Titus it can prove no more than that the two names in that place are given to the same Function That from all the Premisses in your Paper there laid together and supposed true His Majesty doth not conceive it justly proved That the Office of a Bishop and Presbyter is wholly the same but at the most That the Offices were not in those places distinguished by those Names Thirdly if the Assignment of any particular Qualification work or duty unto a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter by the Scripture would as you say put this question near to an issue His Majesty should well have hoped that it might soon be brought to a near point and that from the evidence of the Epistles onely of St. Paul to Timothy wherein as he particulary expresseth the qualification work and duty of Presbyters and Deacons that Timothy might know what persons were fit to be ordained unto those Offices so in the directions given to Timothy throughout those Epistles he sufficiently describeth the qualification work and duty of a Bishop that Timothy might know how to behave himself in the exercise of his Episcopal Office as well in Ordaining as in Governing the Church As to the signification of the word Episcopus the primary signification thereof and the application of it to Church-Officers you acknowledge and that the same was after by Ecclesiastical usage appropriated to Bishops you deny not But the distinction of Episcopus Gregis and Episcopus Pastorum you do not allow If you disallow it for the unfitness of the word as may seem by that passage where you say that His Majesty hath said that Episcopus signifieth a Keeper of Shepherds His Majesty thinketh you might very well have spared that exception For if there be a person that hath the oversight of many Shepherds under him there is no more impropriety in giving such a person the style of Episcopus Pastorum than there is in using the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or in calling Doeg the Master of Saul's Herdsmen And for the thing it self it cannot be denied but that the Apostles and Timothy and Titus by what claim ordinary or extraordinary as to the present business it matters not had the oversight and authority over many Pastors and were therefore truly and really Episcopi Pastorum The appropriation of the names of Episcopus and Presbyter to these distinct Offices considering that it was done so early and received so universally in the Church as by the writings of Clemens Ignatius the Canons commonly called of the Apostles and other ancient evidences doth appear His Majesty hath great reason to believe that it was done by consent of the Primitive Bishops merely in honour of the Apostles out of their respect and reverence to whose persons and personal Prerogatives they chose to call themselves Bishops rather than Apostles in common usage although they made no scruple to maintain their succession from the Apostles when they spake of things proper to their Episcopal Function nor to use upon occasion the terms of Apostle and Apostolical in that sense The truth of all which is to be seen frequently in the writings of the Ancients The Testimonies of so many Writers ancient and modern as have been produced for the Scripture-original of Bishops His Majesty conceiveth to be of so great importance in a question of this nature that He thinks himself bound both in Charity and Reason to believe that so many men of such quality would not have asserted the same with so much confidence but upon very good ground The Men respectively of high estimation and reverend authority in the Church worthily renowned for their Learning and Piety of moderate and even Passions of Orthodox belief sundry of them uninteressed in the Quarrel and some of them of later times by interest and education byassed the other way Their assertions positive peremptory and full of assurances Constat nemo ignorat it is clear none can be ignorant and other such like expressions namely That Christ constituted Bishops in the Apostles That it was founded upon a divine Law That Episcopacy is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ordinance of God That it seemed good to the Holy Ghost so to order it c. Insomuch as they accounted Aerius an Heretick for holding the contrary And this their Judgment they delivered as led thereunto by evidence of Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's Word teacheth it apertis Scripturae testimoniis it appeareth by plain testimonies of Scripture discimus ex hoc loco from this place we learn and the like Which testimonies should they be encountred as His Majesty doth not yet believe they can be with a cloud of Witnesses to the contrary for number and in every other respect equal thereunto yet should not the Authority of their evidence in reason be much lessened thereby inasmuch as one Witness for the Affirmative ought to be of more value than ten for the Negative and the testimony of one person that is not interessed than of an hundred that are And whereas you seem in this Question to decline this kind of trial because matter of Right is properly triable by Scripture His Majesty conceiveth this present Question in what terms soever proposed to be yet in the true stating of it and in the last Resolution clearly a Question of Fact and not of Right For what Right soever the Bishops have or pretend to have must be derived from the Fact of Christ or his Apostles Which matter of Fact if it be not in the most plain Historical manner that may be related in the Scriptures but is to be deduced thence by topical remote inferences and probability of Conjectures the most rational and proper expedient for the finding out of the Right is to have recourse to the Judgment but especially to the Practice of the nearest and subsequent times according to the received Maxims Lex currit cum Praxi Consuetudo optimus interpres Legum Now he that shall find by all the best Records extant that the distinction of Bishops from and the Superiority over Presbyters was so universally and speedily spread over the face of the whole World and their Government submitted unto so unanimously by the Presbyters that there never was any considerable opposition made there-against before Aerius and that cryed down as an Heresie nor since till this last Age and shall duly consider withal that if Episcopal Government had not then been conceived to have had its institution from the Authority of Christ or his Apostles or if any other form of
Presbytery exercised the power either of Ordination at all without a Bishop or of that which they call Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in ordinary and by their own sole Authority or otherwise than as it was delegated unto them upon occasion and for the time by Apostles or Bishops For that place of Phil. 1. 1. in particular His Majesties purpose being not to interpret the place a work fitter for Divines but to manifest the inconsequence of the Argument whereby you would conclude but two standing Officers only because but two there named He gave this as one probable conjecture why there might be no Bishop in distinct sense there mentioned because possibly the Apostles had not as yet set any Bishop over that Church which His Majesty did not propose as the only no nor yet as the most probable conjecture for which cause He delivered it so cautiously saying only It might be probable but as that which for the present came first into His thoughts and was sufficient for His purpose without the least meaning thereby to prejudice other interpretations as namely of those Expositors who take the words with the Bishops and Deacons as belonging to the persons saluting and not to the persons saluted to this sense Paul and Timotheus the servants of Jesus Christ with the Bishops and Deacons to the Saints at Philippi c. or of those who affirm and that with great probability too that Epaphroditus was then actually Bishop of Philippi but not to be mentioned in the Inscription of the Epistle because he was not then at Philippi but with Saint Paul at Rome when that Epistle was written Any of which conjectures if they be true as there is none of them utterly improbable that place of Phil. 1. 1. will not do you much service in this Question In the Epistles to Timothy and Titus the Apostle directeth and admonisheth them as Bishops particularly concerning Ordination of Ministers that they do it advisedly and ordain none but such as are meetly qualified for the Service of the Church which Directions and Admonitions His Majesty believeth for the substance to belong to all Bishops of after-times as well as unto them But His Majesty seeth no necessity why in those Epistles there should be any particular directions given concerning the Ordination of Bishops at least unless it could be made appear that they were to ordain some such in those places nor perhaps if that could be made to appear inasmuch as in those Epistles there is not the least signification of any difference at all between Presbyters and Deacons in the manner of their Ordination both being to be performed by the Bishop and by Imposition of Hands and so both comprehended under that general Rule Lay hands suddenly on no man but only and that very little and scarce considerable as to the making of distinct Offices in the qualification of their persons The Ordination therefore of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons being to be performed in the same manner and the same Qualifications after a sort saving such differences as the importance of their several Offices make which is more in the degree than in the things being required in both it had been sufficient if in those Epistles there had been direction given concerning the Ordination and Qualification of but one sort of Church-Officers only as in the Epistle to Titus we see there are of Presbyters only and no mention made of Deacons in the whole Epistle whence it may be as well concluded That there was to be no other standing Officer in the Church of Crete but Presbyters only because Saint Paul giveth no directions to Titus concerning any other as it can be concluded That there were to be no other Officers in the Church of Ephesus but Presbyters and Deacons only because Saint Paul giveth no direction to Timothy concerning any other As to the Ages succeeding the Apostles Concerning the Judgment of Ecclesiastical Writers about the Divine Right of Episcopacy His Majesty conceiveth the difference to be more in their Expressions than in their Meaning some calling it Divine others Apostolical and some but not many Ecclesiastical But that the Superiority of Bishops above Presbyters began in the Apostles times and had its foundation in the Institution either of Christ himself or of his Apostles His Majesty hath not heard Aerius exceped that any till these latter Ages have denied For that which you touch upon concerning the word Infallible His Majesty supposeth you knew His meaning and He delighteth not to contend about words As for the Catalogues some uncertainties in a few a frailty which all human Histories are subject to His Majesty taketh to be insufficient to discredit all Differences there are in Historiographers in reciting the Succession of the Babylonian Persian and Macedonian Kings and of the Saxon Kings in England And we find far more inextricable intricacies in the Fasti Consulares the Catalogues of the Roman Consuls notwithstanding their great care in keeping of the publick Records and the exactness of the Roman Histories than are to be found in Epistcopal Catalogues those especially of the chiefest Cities as Jerusalem Rome Antioch Alexandria Ephesus c. Yet as all men believe there were Kings in those Countries and Consuls in Rome in those times so as you might well foresee would be answered the discrediting of the Catalogues of Bishops in respect of some uncertainties although His Majesty doubteth not but many of the differences you instance in may be fairly reconciled tendeth rather to the confirming of the thing it self That which you say in Answer hereunto that the Ecclesiastical Writers called them Bishops in compliance to the Language of their own Times after the names of Presbyters and Bishops were distinguished but that they were not indeed Bishops in the proper sense now in Question His Majesty who believeth the distinction of those names to have begun presently after the Apostles times if not rather whilst some of them were living doth consequently believe that as they were called so they were indeed Bishops in that proper sense It appeareth by Ignatius his Epistles every where how wide the difference was in his time between a Bishop and a mere Presbyter If Hierom only and some a little ancienter than he had applied the name Bishop to persons that lived some Ages before them there might have been the more colour to have attributed it to such a compliance as you speak of but that they received both the Name and the truth of their relations from unquestionable Testimonies and Records His Majesty thinketh it may be made good by many instances For example to instance in one only Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna who is thought to be the Angel of that Church in the Revelations Ignatius who was contemporary with him wrote one Epistle to him and sends salutation to him in another as
Times much restrained I would have such men Bishops as are most worthy of those encouragements and best able to use them If at any time My Judgment of men failed My good Intention made my error venial And some Bishops I am sure I had whose Learning Gravity and Piety no men of any worth or forehead can deny But of all men I would have Church-men especially the Governors to be redeemed from that vulgar Neglect which besides an innate principle of vicious opposition which is in all men against those that seem to reprove or restrain them will necessarily follow both the Presbyterian Parity which makes all Ministers equal and the Independent Inferiority which sets their Pastors below the People This for my Judgment touching Episcopacy wherein God knows I do not gratifie any design or Passion with the least perverting of Truth And now I appeal to God above and all the Christian World whether it be just for Subjects or pious for Christians by Violence and infinite Indignities with servile restraints to seek to force Me their KING and Soveraign as some men have endeavoured to do against all these grounds of My Judgment to consent to their weak and divided Novelties The greatest Pretender of them desires not more than I do that the Church should be governed as Christ hath appointed in true Reason and in Scripture of which I could never see any probable shew for any other ways who either content themselves with the examples of some Churches in their infancy and solitude when one Presbyter might serve one Congregation in a City or Countrey or else they deny these most evident Truths That the Apostles were Bishops over those Presbyters they ordained as well as over the Churches they planted and That Government being necessary for the Churches well-being when multiplied and sociated must also necessarily descend from the Apostles to others after the example of that power and superiority they had above others which could not end with their Persons since the use and Ends of such Government still continue It is most sure that the purest Primitive and best Churches flourished under Episcopacy and may so still if Ignorance Superstition Avarice Revenge and other disorderly and disloyal Passions had not so blown up some mens minds against it that what they want of Reasons or Primitive Patterns they supply with Violence and Oppression wherein some mens zeal for Bishops Lands Houses and Revenues hath set them on work to eat up Episcopacy which however other men esteem to Me is no less sin than Sacriledg or a Robbery of God the giver of all we have of that portion which devout minds have thankfully given again to him in giving it to his Church and Prophets through whose hands he graciously accepts even a cup of cold water as a libation offered to himself Furtheâ—more as to My particular engagement above other men by an Oath agreeable to my Judgment I am solemnly obliged to preserve that Government and the Rights of the Church Were I convinced of the Unlawfulness of the Function as Antichristian which some men boldly but weakly calumniate I could soon with Judgment break that Oath which erroneously was taken by Me. But being daily by the best disquisition of Truth more confirmed in the Reason and Religion of that to which I am sworn how can any man that wisheth not my Damnation perswade Me at once to so notorious and combined sins of Sacriledg and Perjury besides the many personal Injustices I must do to many worthy men who are as legally invested in their Estates as any who seek to deprive them and they have by no Law been convicted of those Crimes which might forfeit their Estates and Livelihoods I have oft wondred how men pretending to Tenderness of Conscience and Reformation can at once tell Me that My Coronation-Oath binds Me to consent to whatsoever they shall propound to Me which they urge with such Violence tho contrary to all that Rational and Religious Freedom which every man ought to preserve and of which they seem so tender in their own Votes yet at the same time these men will needs perswade Me that I must and ought to dispense with and roundly break that part of My Oath which binds Me agreeable to the best light of Reason and Religion I have to maintain the Government and legal Rights of the Church 'T is strange My Oath should be valid in that part which both My self and all men in their own case esteem injurious and unreasonable as being against the very natural and essential liberty of our Souls yet it should be invalid and to be broken in another clause wherein I think My self justly obliged both to God and Man Yet upon this Rack chiefly have I been held so long by some mens ambitious Covetousness and Sacrilegious Cruelty torturing with Me both Church and State in Civil dissentions till I shall be forced to consent and declare that I do approve what God knows I utterly dislike and in my Soul abhor as many ways highly against Reason Justice and Religion and whereto if I should shamefully and dishonourably give my Consent yet should I not by so doing satisfie the divided Interests and Opinions of those Parties which contend with each other as well as both against Me and Episcopacy Nor can My late condescending to the Scots in point of Church-Government be rightly objected against Me as an inducement for Me to consent to the like in my other Kingdoms for it should be considered that Episcopacy was not so rooted and setled there as 't is here nor I in that respect so strictly bound to continue it in that Kingdom as in this for what I think in my Judgment best I may not think so absolutely necessary for all places and at all times If any shall impute My yielding to them as My Failing and Sin I can easily acknowledg it but that is no argument to do so again or much worse I being now more convinced in that point nor indeed hath My yielding to them been so happy and succesful as to encourage Me to grant the like to others Did I see any thing more of Christ as to Meekness Justice Order Charity and Loyalty in those that pretend to other modes of Government I might suspect My Judgment to be biassed or forestalled with some Prejudice and wontedness of Opinion but I have hitherto so much cause to suspect the contrary in the Manners of many of those men that I cannot from them gain the least reputation for their new ways of Government Nor can I find that in any Reformed Churches whose patterns are so cried up and obtruded upon the Churches under my Dominion either Learning or Religion works of Piety or Charity have so flourished beyond what they have done in My Kingdoms by Gods blessing which might make Me believe either Presbytery or Independency have a more benign influence upon the Church and mens hearts and lives than Episcopacy in its right
subjoyn to that we had said out of the Scriptures the Judgment of divers ancient Writers and Fathers by whom Bishops were not acknowledged as a Divine but as an Ecclesiastical Institution as that which might very much conduce both to the easing of Your Majesties Scruple to consider that howsoever Episcopal Government was generally current yet the superscription was not judged Divine by some of those that either were themselves Bishops or lived under that Government and to the vindication of the opinion which we hold from the prejudice of Novellisme or of Recess from the Judgment of all Antiquity We do as firmly believe as to matter of fact that Chrysostome and Austin were Bishops as that Aristotle was a Philosopher Cicero an Orator though we should rather call our Faith and belief thereof certain in matter of fact upon humane Testimonies uncontroll'd than infallible in respect of the Testimonies themselves But whereas Your Majesty saith That the darkness of the History of the Church in the times succeeding the Apostles is a strong Argument for Episcopacy which notwithstanding that darkness hath found so full proof by unquestioned Catalogues as scarce any other matter of fact hath found the like we humbly conceive that those fore-mentioned times were dark to the Catalogue-makers who must derive the series of Succession from and through those Historical darknesses and so make up their of Catalogues very much from Traditions and Reports which can give no great Evidence because they agree not amongst themselves and that which is the great blemish of their Evidence is that the nearer they come to the Apostles times wherein they should be most of all clear to establish the Succession firm and clear at first the more doubtful uncertain and indeed contradictory to one another are the Testimonies Some say that Clemens was first Bishop of Rome after Peter some say the third and intricacies about the Order of Succession in Linus Anacletus Clemens and another called Cletus as some affirm are inextricable Some say that Titus was Bishop of Crete some say Arch-Bishop and some Bishop of Dalmatia Some say that Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus and some say that John was Bishop of Ephesus at the sametime Some say that Polycarpus was the first Bishop of Smyrna another saith that he succeeded one Bucolus and another that Aristo was first Some say that Alexandria had but one Bishop and other Cites two and others that there was but one Bishop of one City at the same time And how should those Catalogues be unquestionable which must be made up out of Testimonies that fight one with another We confess that the Ancient Fathers Tertullian Irenoeus c. made use of Succession as an Argument against Hereticks or Innovators to prove that they had the traduces Apostolici seminis and that the Godly and Orthodox Fathers were on their side But that which we now have in hand is Succession in Office which according to the Catalogues resolves it self into some Apostle or Evangelist as the first Bishop of such a City or Place who as we conceive could not be Bishops of those places being of higher Office though according to the language of after-times they might by them that drew up the Catalogues be so called because they planted and founded or watered those Churches to which they are Entitled and had their greatest residence in them Or else the Catalogues are drawn from some eminent men that were of great veneration and reverence in the times and places where they lived and Presidents or Moderators of the Presbyteries whereof themselves were Members from whom to pretend the Succession of after Bishops is as if it should be said that Caesar was Successor to the Roman Consuls And we humbly conceive that there are some Rites and Ceremonies used continually in the Church of old which are asserted to be found in the Apostolical and Primitive times and yet have no colour of Divine Institution and which is Argument above all other the Fathers whose Names we exhibited to your Majesty in our Answer were doubtless acquainted with the Catalogues of Bishops who had been before them and yet did hold them to be of Ecclesiastical Institution And lest Your Majesty might reply That however the Testimonies and Catalogues may vary or be mistaken in the order or times or names of those persons that succeeded the Apostles yet all agree that there was a Succession of some persons and so though the credit of the Catalogues be infirmed yet the thing intended is confirmed thereby We grant that a Succession of men to feed and govern those Churches while they continued Churches cannot be denied and that the Apostles and Evangelists that planted and watered those Churches though extraordinary and temporary Officers were by Ecclesiastical Writers in compliance with the Language and usage of their own times called Bishops and so were other eminent men of chief note presiding in the Presbyteries of the Cities or Churches called by such Writers as wrote after the division or distinction of the names of Presbyters and Bishops But that those first and ancientest Presbyters were Bishops in proper sense according to Your Majesties description invested with power over Presbyters and people to whom as distinct from Presbyters did belong the power of Ordaining giving Rules ahd Censures we humbly conceive can never be proved by authentick or competent Testimonies And granting that Your Majesty should prove the Succession of Bishops from the Primitive times seriatim yet if these from whom You draw and through whom You derive it be found either more than Bishops as Apostles and extraordinary persons or less than Bishops as merely first Presbyters having not one of the three Essentials to Episcopal Government mentioned by Your Majesty in their own hand it will follow that all that Your Majesty hath proved by this Succession is the Homonymy and equivocal acceptation of the word Episcopus For Clemens his Testimony which Your Majesty conceiveth to be made use of as our old fallacy from the promiscuous use of the words to infer the indistinction of the things we refer our selves to himself in his Epistle now in all mens hands whose Testimony we think cannot be eluded but by the old Artifice of hiding the Bishop under the Presbyters name for they that have read his whole Epistle and have considered that himself is called a Bishop Clement's opinion concerning the distinct Offices of Bishops and Presbyters or rather not doubt of it if only his own Epistle may be impanel'd upon the Inquest Concerning Ignatius his Epistles Your Majesty is pleased to use some earnestness of expression charging some of late without any regard of ingenuity or truth out of their partial disaffection to Bishops to have endeavoured to discredit his Writings One of those cited by us cannot as we conceive be suspected of disaffection to Bishops and there are great Arguments drawn out of those Epistles themselves betraying their insincerity adulterate mixtures and interpolations so
Church-Government could have pretended to such institution it had been the most impossible thing in the world when there neither was any outward coercive power to inforce it nor could be any General Council to establish it to have introduced such a Form of Government so suddenly and quietly into all Christian Churches and not the Spirit of any one Presbyter for ought that appeareth for above Three Hundred years to have been provoked either through Zeal Ambition or other motive to stand up in the just defence of their own and the Churches liberty against such an Usurpation His Majesty believeth that whosoever shall consider the premisses together with the Scripture-evidences that are brought for that Government will see reason enough to conclude the same to have something of Divine Institution in it notwithstanding all the evasions aad objections that the subtil wit of man can devise to perswade the contrary And therefore His Majesty thinketh it fit plainly to tell you that such Conjectural Interpretations of Scripture as He hath yet met with in this Argument how handsomly soever set off are not Engines of strength enough to remove Him from that Judgment wherein He hath been setled from His Childhood and findeth so consonant to the Judgment of Antiquity and to the constant Practice of the Christian Church for so many hundred years which in a matter of this nature ought to weigh more than mere Conjectural Inferences from Scripture-Texts that are not so attested Which having now once told you His Majesty thinketh Himself discharged from the necessity of making so large and particular an Answer to every Allegation in the sequel of your Reply as hitherto He hath done As to the Apostles Mission and Succession To make His Answer the shorter to so long a discourse His Majesty declareth that His meaning was not by distinguishing the Mission and Vnction of the Apostles so to confine them as if they should relate precisely and exclusively the one to the Office the other to the Abilities but that they did more especially and eminently so relate For the Apostles after their last Mission Matth. xxviii 19 20. whereby they were further warranted to their Office and Work were yet to wait for that promised anointing Luke xxiv 49. Acts i. 4. the special effect whereof was the enduing them with Gifts of the Holy Ghost for the better and more effectual performing of that their Work and Office Nor was it His Majesties meaning to restrain the Extraordinaries in the Apostolical Office to those Gifts only for His Majesty afterwards in the same Paper mentioneth other Extraordinaries also as before is said but only to instance in those Gifts as one sort of Extraordinaries wherein the Apostles were to have no Successors But His Majesties full meaning was that the whole Apostolical Office setting aside all and only what was personal and extraordinary in them consisted in the work of Teaching and Governing which being both of necessary and perpetual use in the Church to the worlds end the Office therefore was also to continue and consequently the persons of the Apostles being mortal to be transmitted and derived to others in succession And that the Ordinary Successors of the Apostles immediately and into the whole Office both of Teaching and Governing are properly the Bishops the Presbyters succeeding them also but in part and into the Office of Teaching only and that mediately and subordinately to the Bishops by whom they are to be ordained and authorized thereunto which His Majesty taketh not to be as you call it a dissolving of the Apostolical Office Now the ground of what His Majesty hath said concerning the manner of Succession to the Apostles that it may appear not to have been said gratis is this The things which the Scriptures record to have been done by Christ or his Apostles or by others at their appointment are of three sorts some acts of Power merely extraordinary others acts of an ordinary power but of necessary and perpetual use othersome lastly and those not a few Occasional and Prudential fitted to the present condition of the Church in several times To the Apostles in matters of the first sort none pretend succession nor are either the Examples of what the Apostles themselves did or the directions that they gave to others what they should do in matters of the third sort to be drawn into consequence so far as to be made necessary Rules binding all succeeding Church-officers in all Times to perpetual observation So that there remain the things of the middle sort only which we may call Substantials into which the Apostles are to have ordinary and standing Successors But then the difficulty will be by what certain marks Extraordinaries Substantials and Prudentials may be known and distinguished each from other Evident it is the Scriptures do not afford any particular discriminating Characters whereby to discern them the Acts of all the three sorts being related in the like narrative forms and the directions of all the three sorts expressed in the like preceptive forms Recourse therefore must of necessity be had to those two more general Criterions the Laws of all human actions Reason and Common Usage Our own Reason will tell us that instructing the People of God in the Christian Faith exhorting them to Piety and good Works administring the Sacraments c. which belong to the Office of Teaching that Ordaining of Ministers Inspection over their Lives and Doctrines and other Administrations of Ecclesiastical Affairs belonging to the Office of Governing are matters of great importance and necessary concernment to the Church in all ages and times and therefore were to be concredited to standing Officers in a Line of succession and accordingly were judged and the continuance of them preserved in the constant usage of the Churches of Christ But that on the other side the decrees concerning Abstinence from Blood and Strangled Acts xv the Directions given for the ordering some things in the Church-Assemblies i Cor. xiv for making Provisions for the Poor i Cor. xvi 1. for the choice and maintenance of Widows i Tim. v. for the enoiling of the sick James v. 14. and other like were but Occasional Prudential and Temporary and were so esteemed by the Churches and the practice of them accordingly laid aside So for the Succession into the Apostolical Office we find in the Scriptures Evidence clear enough that the Apostles committed to others as namely to Timothy and Titus the Power both of Teaching and Governing the Churches And common Reason and Prudence dictating to us that it is good for the edifying of the Church that there should be many Teachers within a competent precinct but not so that there should be many Governours and the difference of Bishops and Presbyters to the purposes aforesaid having been by continual usage received and preserved in the Christian Church down from the Apostles to the present times His Majesty conceiveth the succession of Bishops to the Apostles into so
that an orderly Subordination among Presbyters or Ministers should be any more against Christianity than it is in all secular and Civil Governments where Parity breeds Confusion and Faction I can no more believe that such Order is inconsistent with true Religion than good Features are with Beauty or Numbers with Harmony Nor is it likely that God who appointed several orders and a Prelacy in the Government of his Church among the Jewish Priests should abhor or forbid them among Christian Ministers who have as much of the Principles of Schism and Division as other men for preventing and suppressing of which the Apostolical Wisdom which was divine after that Christians were multiplied to many Congregations and Presbyters with them appointed this way of Government which might best preserve Order and Union with Authority So that I conceive it was not the Favour of Princes or Ambition of Presbyters but the Wisdom and Piety of the Apostles that first setled Bishops in the Church which Authority they constantly used and enjoyed in those times which were purest for Religion tho sharpest for Persecution Not that I am against the managing of this Presidency and Authority in one man by the joynt counsel and consent of many Presbyters I have offered to restore that as a fit means to avoid those Errors Corruptions and Partialities which are incident to any one man also to avoid Tyranny which becomes no Christians least of all Church-men besides it will be a means to take away that burthen and odium of affairs which may lie too heavy on one mans shoulders as indeed I think it formerly did on the Bishops here Nor can I see what can be more agreeable both to Reason and Religion than such a frame of Government which is Paternal not Magisterial and wherein not only the necessity of avoiding Faction and Confusion Emulations and Contempts which are prone to arise among equals in Power and Function but also the differences of some Ministers gifts and aptitudes for Government above others doth invite to employ them in reference to those Abilities wherein they are eminent Nor is this Judgment of Mine touching Episcopacy any pre-occupation of Opinion which will not admit any oppositions against it It is well known I have endeavoured to satisfie My self in what the chief Patrons for other ways can say against this or for theirs And I find as they have far less of Scripture grounds and of Reason so for Examples and Practice of the Church or testimonies of Histories they are wholly destitute wherein the whole stream runs so for Episcopacy that there is not the least rivulet for any others As for those obtruded Examples of some late Reformed Churches for many retain Bishops still whom necessity of times and affairs rather excuseth than commendeth for their Inconformity to all Antiquity I could never see any reason why Churches orderly reformed and governed by Bishops should be forced to conform to those few rather than to the Catholick example of all Ancient Churches which needed no Reformation and to those Churches at this day who governed by Bishops in all the Christian world are many more than Presbyterians or Independents can pretend to be All whom the Churches in My Three Kingdoms lately governed by Bishops would equalize I think if not exceed Nor is it any point of Wisdom or Charity where Christians differ as many do in some points there to widen the differences and at once to give all the Christian world except a handful of some Protestants so great a scandal in point of Church-Government whom tho you may convince of their Errors in some points of Doctrine yet you shall never perswade them that to compleat their Reformation they must necessarily desert and wholly cast off that Government which they and all before them have ever owned as Catholick Primitive and Apostolical so far that never Schismaticks nor Hereticks except those Aerians have strayed from the Unity and Conformity of the Church in that point ever having Bishops above Presbyters Besides the late general Approbation and Submission to this Government of Bishops by the Clergy as well as the Laity of these Kingdoms is a great confirmation of My Judgment and their Inconstancy is a great prejudice against their Novelty I cannot in charity so far doubt of their Learning or Integrity as if they understood not what heretofore they did or that they did conform contrary to their Consciences So that their facility and Levity is never to be excused who before ever the point of Church-government had any free and impartial debate contrary to their former Oaths and Practice against their obedience to the Laws in force and against My Consent have not only quite cried down the Government by Bishops but have approved and encouraged the violent and most illegal stripping all the Bishops and many other Church-men of all their due Authority and Revenues even to the selling away and utter alienation of those Church-lands from any Eclesiastical uses So great a power hath the stream of Times and the prevalency of Parties over some mens Judgments of whose so sudden and so total change little reason can be given besides the Scots Army coming into England But the Folly of these men will at last punish it self and the Desertors of Episcopacy will appear the greatest Enemies to and Betrayers of their own Interest for Presbytery is never so considerable or effectual as when it is joined to and crowned with Episcopacy All Ministers will find as great a difference in point of thriving between the favour of the People and of Princes as Plants do between being watered by hand or by the sweet and liberal dews of Heaven The tenuity and contempt of Clergy-men will soon let them see what a poor Carcass they are when parted from the influence of that Head to whose Supremacy they have been sworn A little Moderation might have prevented great mischiefs I am firm to Primitive Episcopacy not to have it extirpated if I can hinder it Discretion without Passion might easily reform whatever the rust of Times or indulgence of Laws or corruption of Manners have brough upon it It being a gross vulgar Error to impute to or revenge upon the Function the faults of Times or Persons which Seditious and popular Principle and Practice all wise men abhor For those Secular additaments and ornaments of Authority Civil Honour and Estate which My Predecessors and Christian Princes in all Countries have annexed to Bishops and Church-men I look upon them but as just Rewards of their Learning and Piety who are fit to be in any degree of Church-Government also enablements to works of Charity and Hospitality meet strengthenings of their Authority in point of Respect and Observance which in peaceful times is hardly payed to any Governors by the measure of their Virtues so much as by that of their Estates poverty and meanness exposing them and their Authority to the contempt of licentious minds and manners which persecuting